Klausen pass, Albula pass and on to bormio

The overnight rain had cleared the skies giving us some astounding views as we travelled through the Swiss countryside in the morning sun. It took us some time to clear the lakes, every turn seemed to reveal more water. When we did break away from the lakeside at Altdorf onto the start of the Klausen pass we ran into a local traffic jam as the cows were transferred between fields.

While we held back one of the locals took offence and decided to charge past us and the cows at speed. This scared the life of the farmers truing to keep the skittish beasts under control. With the cows cleared we were off once more this time climbing steeply up the valley.

The Klausen pass has some real precipices with the road just barely clinging to the mountain side in places, this caused real problems for my Dad who was driving. Thankfully we climbed past the river carved section onto the glacially carved flatter profile near the highest point. The views were stunning on the way up but the crest was a little disappointing.

Down the far side we stopped off for coffee and cake at Schwanden, and fuel in Glarus.

At this point i took over the driving as we joined the A3/A13 motorways towards Chur and then on to Tiefencastel. This was to join up with the Albula pass which we elected to do in place of the Flüela pass which we had previously planned. Albula Pass is stunningly beautiful, following the path of a mountain railway through a very lush alpine forest valley up to the barren wastes at its highest point of 2310m. There was a typical guest house at the top where we stopped for local nut cake.

Good food and lovely proprietors who were delighted to see the car up there. The decent to La Punt was equally scenic. A thoroughly recommended pass.
With that behind us we drove on to Zernez and the Munt la Schera tunnel from Switzerland into Italy.

Once in Italy there was a very noticeable drop in road surface quality although the views over Lago Di Livigno went a long way to make up for those potholes. We did not realise that Livigno was a tax free zone until we had passed through it, top tip to those that follow there is very cheap fuel here.

We arrived in Bormio just after 17:00 local time and found a hotel. It was supposed to have a secure garage but this was closed over the summer months so we had to park the car in a secluded parking lot next to the hotel, fortunately it is visible from the hotel balcony.

We stuffed ourselves with food tonight, ordering two mixed starters where one would have been plenty followed by pizza.