Today we travelled on the Bernina Express, all the way to Poschiavo, returning by way of St Moritz. It really is a masterpiece of engineering, and the combination of this and the landscape around it led to it's being recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, I am so exhausted from running up and down the train taking photos, I don't think I have the energy to write very much about it, I'm afraid!
After leaving Chur, the train travels through a valley said to contain Europe's highest density of castles. Owing to the morning fog, they were pretty hard to spot!
This looks like something Turner might have painted!
The journey continues through a gorge and into a valley which contains a world famous viaduct, the Landwasser Viaduct. My photos of the viaduct are awful, but this is the view as you go across it.
It isn't the only stunning view of course, and even the roads are masterpieces of engineering.
The railway climbs and climbs, using 55 tunnels and 196 bridges, running along what seems like a shelf of rock most of the way up the mountain, with sheer cliff faces and bare exposed rocks. Far below, you can sometimes see glacial streams.
At the highest point, there are glaciers.
You can probably see in the distance that there is far less vegetation; the train eventually crosses a bare bleak plateau above 2200 metres, before descending towards Poschiavo.
Poschiavo has a great many old Renaissance buildings in the old town.
This tower next to the main church would not look out of place in Italy
There's even a whole row of 'palaces' at one end of the town.
This looks to be the oldest building, with a date around 1460.
As you can see, the streets are cobbled.
We were due to lunch in Poschiavo, but most of the cafés were closed for lunch - restaurants were open, but we only wanted something light like soup or a sandwich, so it was quite hard to find a place.
Just after 1.30 we set off back towards Chur, stopping around 3 in St Moritz. Unfortunately, the station there is being re-built so you are rather trapped inside it, and we were there for too short a time so we weren't able to walk into town.
We arrived back in Chur around 6, having had the opportunity to photograph a few things we missed in the morning, and being able to see more of the scenery, as much of the morning's fog had cleared.
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