Friday was an early start, down to breakfast at 07:00 and onto the coach at 07:45. We were on the first of 3 coaches and glad it worked out that way as it turned out we had the best driver / tour guide combination, 2 old boys with years of experience and loads of personal insights. As the day progressed and we compared notes with those on the other coaches it became obvious that our early start efforts had been rewarded. The coach took us off up through Menaggio and continued on up along the lakeside and across the top, over the 2 rivers that feed into the lake from the top and up to Poschiavo where we left the coaches to get refreshments in a local cafe bar, then explore the town before boarding the Bernina Express for a slow and winding ride to meet up with the coaches again at Pontresina then driving to St Moritz.
St Moritz... where do I start. I remember seeing it on the TV as a kid, watching coverage of skiing and winter (snow) sports. Films (like James Bond Goldfinger) with shots of this exotic place where the great and the good with never ending bank balances holidayed. I never dreamt I'd ever get there, but here I am, walking up the main street past designer brand shops, boutiques and expensive looking buildings. St Moritz of today is not the same as the one from that 1964 Bond film and is the worse for it. Now it is a glamorous concrete jungle. Gone are the chocolate box picture Swiss chalets, now relegated to the outskirts of the town, both up above on the higher ground and lower down, below, around the lake that in winter sees horses racing on the frozen lake surface. But as I stood there taking photographs (snap shots really) that mattered little - I was in St Moritz, with Suzie, Carole and Giuseppe. We walked into a swish cafe, through the restaurant and into their rather posh bathroom, complete with piped bird songs. Then we took a road down to the western end of the town's lake, sitting on public benches to eat pack lunches we'd had the hotel make up for us. Then a stroll back along the lakeside path back to the railway / bus station to the pick-up by the coaches for the drive back to our hotel at Cadenabbia.
The route back was different to the outbound route, no train but loads of hairpin bends - 18 in one section alone. This route saw us travel through what I regard as much more typically Alpine Swiss countryside, all greenery, Swiss chalets and farms with livestock with the ever present mountains in the background cloaked in trees and topped with snow. The crossing from Italy to Switzerland had been a non-event marked only by some rather chunky buildings but on the return journey it was even more of a non-event, and the coach swept down and back into Italy. We picked up the lakeside road between the 2 rivers at the top of Lake Como and retrace our route with one variance, this time the coach took all the tunnels that bypass many of the local towns and villages that we had driven through on the way up the lake.
We get back to yet another indifferent buffet meal at the hotel and end the day with a walk up the road at the back of the hotel, to find very little of interest so we turned in for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment