Day 13 - The Bernina Pass

The beauty of a train ride is that you can glue your nose to the window and take in everything like when you read a good book and you immerse yourself so much in it that you forget about everything else.  This is what happened to me today. We left Innsbruck and went by train to St Moritz via Chur, through the Bernina Pass.  The path is ranked by UNESCO as the third most beautiful in the world said the train conductor, and I can only agree that is one of the most beautiful. Period. The best I've ever seen so far, although the competition given by the Anchorage-Fairbanks scenic route was no less significant. 

Similar to Austria, the mountain villages in Switzerland also have the houses spread apart, but clustered around streets, which allows a lot of green space among them. Hay shacks made of dark wood and hay stacks rolled in shiny white plastic to protect from rain look like huge candy pieces spread over green lawns.

Very often, there are alternating corn and hay lots, with a house farm in the back.  Always the tall tower of a church dominates the sky the middle of the community.

The Filisur to Bergün is the best and highest part of the ride, and I recommend this trip from the bottom of my heart.  

Once arrived in St Moritz, the adventures started! First, we figured that the travel agent didn't book a hotel as promised. We managed to get one room in a not very very expensive decent hotel that had a nail salon next door. 

We tried to get a manicure since we've been for a while on the road and desperately needed some grooming. However, we discovered that the salon was operated by one grouchy old lady only who told us she could do our manicure next week 😄.  I said that if we afforded such a long stay, we'd go to a posh spa! 

We meant to buy fruit and snacks for tomorrow on the Glacier Express, but got so inspired by the supermarkt food, had a scrumptious dinner in the room! Tired of potatoes and fried food, we got sushi, two cornetti con crema di vagnilia and the best tasting trio of berries ever! Incredible quality food, great taste, and not a lot more expensive than in our supermarket. 

Go Alps!!!

This was after we took the funicular to go up to Corviglia -a 5 min ride worth 50CHF!  The view of the city and the Alps was stunning though.  

Funny how the euros are accepted but the rest is given in CHF.  However, I cannot use euro coins, only bills. 

We get around everywhere speaking Italian although I expected people to speak mostly French and German (or Romansh). This is because we are so close to Italy. 

Finally, yes, I did get dark chocolate from a boutique and it was ... Ah, so good!