Wait… is that snow?

Today was an early departure, we left the hotel at 6:45 AM to start our drive to Tirano, on the border of Italy and Switzerland. Surprise! We’re going to Switzerland today! We are going to be riding the Bernina Express operated by Rhaetian Railway through the Swiss Alps. There is also Torino, where the 2006 Winter Olympics were held, that was located in Turin, Italy

The drive took a little over two hours, approximately 120 km.

It was beautiful scenery, even though it was overcast. We were amazed by all the hillside places they found to plant grapevines. It seemed like they utilized every single space. We made a quick pitstop for a bathroom break – $1 Euro for LJ but Barry and Brenda went into a different building and the very nice store employee let them use their restroom at no charge. This was good news as there weren’t enough Euros for everyone and hard decisions would have had to have been made.

We parked, let L.J. be in charge of the parking meter, which always seem to be a bit frustrating and off we went towards the train station. Can I comment again about how easy train travel is in Europe and how nice it is to just sit back, relax and enjoy the view?

We found our seats and got settled in. Flat Stanley was along for the trip (without a ticket!)

So… speaking of tickets. After we were underway, the train conductor came through to scan in everyone’s tickets. Our tickets weren’t tickets, they were reservations, which L.J. had made in February. At that point in time, you could only make the reservation portion and were to return to buy the tickets that were connected to the reservation. It was quite confusing, they did allow us to buy them on the train but it was a little about $110 Euro more pp so, an unplanned expense. We were thankful it didn’t mean we had to cancel our day and so we got ready to enjoy some amazing views!

Our climb from below to atop a bridge, plus some goat and cows along the way!

We continued our climb and noticed, our views were changing a bit. It was now time for the stop of the trip, at Alp Grum, 2,091 meters high. And it was SNOWING!!! I was so happy to see snow and it was amazing to be in Switzerland and have it snow.

We continued to make our way towards St. Moritz and found even more snowy conditions.

We had a brief snack and drink break, including little tin trains that were filled with Swiss Chocolate. L.J. was the only one that was a fan of the tea.

When we got off the train in St. Moritz, there were two main ways to go – left or right and the city actually sits up on the hill above the train station, which is down by Lake St. Moritzersee. We chose left and went through a tunnel and through an underground parking garage and then found three longer than average escalators that took you up to the “city”.

This was obviously NOT tourist season in St. Moritz, many shops were completely closed, some renovations and construction work was being done in many places and we didn’t have a ton of choices for lunch options but we walked around a bit and then made a choice.

Lunch at Restaurant Acla

We arrived at a good time and were seated in a cozy little alcove. The only problem? The walls were all heated. This is probably an amazing feature if you’ve been out snowing and are on the verge of frost bite. It was a cool, rainy day but heated walls were definitely not needed! We ordered an appetizer and L.J. got some soup and we waited on our main dishes.