Here in the north of Italy, we are so close to the Italian Alps we can see the peaks on a clear day. We know that the Swiss Alps are just a little out of sight, less than 2 hours by car. We don't have a car, but we did some planning and realized we could do a quick one-night trip on one of the scenic Swiss train that goes through the alps, the Bernina Express. It's a very popular excursion and you have to reserve seats in advance. So we kept an eye on the weather and chose a good window for (fingers crossed!) no rain and clear skies, and booked round-trip tickets and a hotel.
The Bernina Express starts in Tirano, Italy and goes north into Switzerland, stopping at a few stations and terminating in either St. Moritz or Chur in Switzerland. The schedules for the Chur leg didn't work for our timeframe so we planned to take the scenic train to St. Moritz, spend the night, and return the next day also on the scenic train. But first, we had to get to Tirano. This involved getting up early, taking a ferry to Varenna, and catching a northbound regional train along Lake Como and then eastward through the Valtellina valley to Tirano. Even though we weren't on the "official" scenic train yet, this was still a very scenic ride. The Valtellina is a wine-growing region and from the train we could see vineyard terraces climbing high into the mountains.
We arrived in Tirano mid-morning and our Bernina reservation wasn't until 4:06pm so we had time to grab a cappuccino and a brioche at a cafe. The pastries look like regular old croissants but they are filled with richly flavored pastry cream. Kevin's pistachio one was even more delicious than my chocolate-filled one.
We exercised some restraint and took only photos of the rest of the goodies in the pastry case, instead of ordering one of each as I wished I could do...
Hyped up on sugar and caffeine, we set out to explore the town of Tirano for a few hours. Tirano is just on the Italian side of the northern border with Switzerland. The main attraction here in town is the beautiful Basilica of the Madonna of Tirano.
In 1504 a local man in a vineyard saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. She promised him that she would save the local people from the plague if he built a church on that spot in her honor. The shrine was built, the plague miraculously avoided the town, and there was much rejoicing. The interior of the church is ornately decorated and the highlight is a massive carved wooden organ supported by marble pillars so that it appears to be floating in the air.
We still had plenty of time before our train, so we walked for twenty minutes to the other end of town to check out the Palazzo Salis, a 17th century palace that was built by a local noble family. The Salis family still owns the palace and has opened it to the public as a museum. It is really awe-inspiring inside -- every ceiling is a work of art.
The most impressive room was this dining hall, the Saloncello. The ceiling looks much higher than it actually is due to an illusion created by the artist who painted it in the trompe-l'oeil style ("fool the eye"). From the center of the room it appears that you are in a multi-story domed room when really the ceiling is only just slightly vaulted. I was amazed that we were the only people in the museum for our entire visit.
We wandered through the palace and the hidden walled garden for at least an hour and had it all to ourselves. We had a choice when scheduling our train "layover" and I was really glad we had given ourselves enough time here in Tirano to see this place and the church instead of just rushing off on the next train.
The Bernina Express is one of the most scenic train journeys in the world, and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008. It's the highest railway in Europe, crossing the alps at a maximum height of 7391 feet at the Ozpizio Bernina station. The track itself is a feat of engineering -- there are tunnels, viaducts, bridges, and many hairpins doubling back as the train gains altitude -- parts of the track have an incline of 7%. Not bad for a railway built between 1908-1910. The section we rode on between St. Moritz and Tirano goes through 13 tunnels as it makes the 38 mile journey. Below is a map where the top line shows the altitude gain from Tirano (on the lower right) up and over the Bernina pass, to St. Moritz on the left.
One of the highlights of the track (other than seeing the alps, of course) is making a loop-de-loop at the Brusio Cicular Viaduct. You can see the rest of the train circle around as the train makes the 360-degree turn.
Special cars with high curved windows let you see in all directions as you sweep past milky blue glacial lakes and cross over the pass.
We had booked the last Bernina Express train of the day going north to St. Moritz and were surprised at how many empty seats there were. Many people do this excursion as a day trip and take an early morning bus to St. Moritz from Milan, then ride the midday train down to Tirano and bus back to Milan in the evening. That makes for a long day, and it also means that the midday trains going south are pretty full. As it turned out, we discovered that we could have probably saved some money and given ourselves more flexibility if we'd booked a regular non-Bernina Express ticket for at least one direction. We would not have had reserved seats, but this would have allowed us to be in a regular car with windows that would open for better pictures. We also would have been able to get off the train, taken a hike, and then reboarded a later train going the same direction. Live and learn, I guess. At least we were able to get out of the train at Alp Grüm.
Our weather planning paid off! At the top of the pass, the train stops at Alp Grüm station and everyone gets about 10-15 minutes to get out and view the scenery. Because it was so clear we had glorious views of the Palü Glacier at the top of Piz Palü in the Bernina range.
We arrived in St. Moritz in time to check into the hotel and grab some dinner. The town seemed incredibly quiet on a Tuesday night. I guess the summer season has mostly wound down, and the winter ski season has yet to start. Kevin planned ahead and we had a reservation at one of the busier restaurants in town. For dinner we had fondue, of course, because...Switzerland.
The next day we had a little more time to explore St. Moritz since our train did not leave until 1:17pm. We had coffee and took a walk around town. Lots of high-end shops and some pretty buildings, including this church spire that is visible from almost everywhere in town.
One of the churches in town has a tower that leans even more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is the 108-foot-tall tower of St. Mauritius, a remnant of a church that was built in the 1100s. The church was dismantled in 1893 due to disrepair and imminent collapse, but the tower is (barely) still standing. It is currently at a tilt of 5.36 degrees while Pisa's tower is at only 3.97 degrees. Both towers have had multiple interventions to prevent collapse. Because the ground underneath the St. Mauritius tower is unstable, every year it shifts further and needs to be lifted a bit periodically by hydraulic jacks to straighten it out.
We had enough time to walk halfway around the lake and grab lunch at a lakeside cafe before boarding the train back to Tirano.
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the scenery in reverse. The train back south was more crowded but luckily the seats next to us were not reserved so we were still very comfortable. The weather was a bit cloudier than the day before so the glaciers and snow-capped mountaintops were not as visible, but the ride was still very relaxing. We were happy to have taken a "side quest" to see the Swiss Alps on this trip.
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