Bernina Express
The second weekend in February, we went for a ride on the Bernina Express. It’s a train that runs from Chur in Kanton Graubünden to the village of Tirano just across the border in Italy. It runs along a part of the train system that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there are special train cars with extra large windows for looking out at the scenery.
The night before we left, we took the train from Zürich to Chur (about 2 hours) and spent the night. We stayed at the Hotel Freieck. These photos are from that part of the city. The last one is a photo of the ibex (some sort of goat) that is on the coat of arms of Kanton Graubünden, which they also apparently paint onto their roads.
Fun fact: Graubünden is the Kanton that issued my COVID Certificate that I’ve been using all these months to travel and to eat at restaurants. Back when I got my certificate, for some reason Zürich wouldn’t issue one to me, so I kept trying different Kantons until I succeeded. Team GB!
This is the map of the route of the Bernina Express.
We left the train station at 8:30 in the morning. Saw some cross-country skiing along the way. Also a frozen lake somewhere up above the tree line. The high point of the journey was at 2253m (7392ft.), then we stopped at Alp Grüm station which is at 2091m (6860ft.).
We were allowed 15 minutes for photos at Alp Grüm. It was beautiful but very, very cold!
After that stop, it was descent down into the Poschiavo valley. There was a really cool circular viaduct that we went over (the Brusio spiral viaduct). Once we were down in the valley, everything looked much more Italian. Tirano, the final stop, is just across the border between Switzerland and Italy.
We had just about an hour and a half, so pretty much all we did was eat lunch and not stray too far from the train station. One of the sights to see in Tirano was too far to walk, so I got a picture as we passed by it on the way back - the Basilica Madonna di Tirano (picture #4 below).
Pro tip: taking the Bernina Express 4 hours one way, having an hour and a half for lunch, then retracing the route for another 4 hours (plus 2 more hours at the end to get back to Zürich) was TOO much. We were sick of trains by the end. It’s probably better to just do one trip on the Express, then take another route back home. Or maybe plan a few more nights to travel further into Italy before returning home.
What else did we learn? Graübunden is a gigantic Kanton, the largest in Switzerland. Other than the little bit in Italy, the rest of the 4 hour journey on the Bernina Express was all contained in GB. Also, GB is the only Kanton where the 4th language, Romansh, is spoken. What else? That the Express actually does travel through 55 tunnels on its journey, because we counted on the way back. And oh yeah, I get altitude sickness up that high.