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Title : Paris to Rome, via Zurich? By Train? And Here's Why. . . .
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Paris to Rome, via Zurich? By Train? And Here's Why. . . .

We're settling in at our daughter's after a week of planes and trains and four different beds, glad to be able to unpack and stay for a while. She and our son-in-law are dropping the Wee Italian Girl at daycare now, and then he's dropping her at the train for yoga camp, and Nana and Granddad are on Support Duty. We have our days free, and we'll spend this morning plotting transit and bike routes, trying to avoid using the car as much as possible for the sake of our nerves!

But I thought that before we do that, I'd share a few photos of our train ride through the Swiss Alps on the Bernina Express.  Our trip to Italy this time is centred around a three-week commitment to help with the Wee Italian while my daughter's away, but I wanted to add a special portion just for us, and something that wouldn't demand too many additional days. And, as you will already know if you visit this blog often, we prefer trains over planes for travel between European cities, when that works.  So after a full day (and two nights) in Paris to catch our breath after the nine-hour flight, we travelled from Gare de Lyon to Zurich HB -- that's us in Zurich, above.

And the next morning (early, the next morning!), we caught a train from Zurich to Chur, and at Chur we boarded the cheery red Bernina Express and began our five-hour (roughly) journey through the Alps, climbing gradually to 2200 metres before wending our way downward to Tirano, on the border of Switzerland and Italy.

The weather wasn't ideal for maximizing the views possible -- it has been raining copiously, and the route was wreathed, sometimes thickly blanketed, with fog. Still, pretty enough, no?

And then in spots, the sun had insisted on its way, the fog or clouds parted, and we got a sense of just how dazzling this route must be on a clear, cold day in January.

As it was, even in early December, there was much magnificence!

These photos, of course, are all taken through the generous windows of the Express -- for the darker portions of the trip, the reflections from the lighting inside the coach made photography's worth questionable, so I just settled back and absorbed. But it was tough not to try and record, as we'd round another corner and gasp. . . .

Especially cool were the sections where the track curved enough that we could look ahead and see the train cars in front of us drawing swoops of red on the snowy background, the snow melting its white into the more variegated light of the clouds above. . .

This valley, below. . . this elicited those gasps I mentioned above, and I'm happy that one of my desperate snaps (turn the camera back on again, then realize there's a bank of trees between me and the scene that's just gobsmacked me, then get a clear shot, then realize the camera wasn't focused, then try again, feeling the carriage curving into an angle that will deny the shot -- hurry! hurry!) captured this to share with you.

Maybe I wouldn't have preferred that clear, sunny day after all . . . I mean, this drama. . .

Probably the coolest part of the day was when we hit the famous Brusio spiral viaduct. We travelled above those stone arches (built in 1908), and then followed the track around in a spiral that then looped through an archway, as you can tell in the photo below. The viaduct was built to allow a descent to happen safely, at a maximum of 7% gradient.

Wonderful photos of trains spiralling across this structure abound on the Internet, many taken by professional photographers from well-chosen vantage points outside the train. If you've seen those, mine obviously pale in comparison. But there's something about being inside and part of that spiral, looking ahead and behind to see the front and back of the train playing geometric tricks, that's worth trying to capture, at least. . .

We're already considering taking a ride through again, perhaps in late spring, perhaps even budgeting time to stop overnight along the way. The Bernina Express was a wonderful experience (in second class, great seats, lovely international companions, one very helpful attendant -- who excitedly pointed out the "steinbock" on the mountainside, a group of mountain goats, what a thrill! -- and made sure everyone was able to locate them), but the route is served throughout the day by the regular regional trains -- a slower passage, perhaps, but a more flexible schedule. 

I must mention here that I learned of the Bernina Express through The Man in Seat 61, a resource gem if you're at all interested in train travel (throughout the world).  We've been following The Man's train-travel advice for years -- he tells you how and when and what connections are most efficient or what detours are worthwhile; when is 1st-class worth the price difference and when is it not; how to get the best value for your money, sometimes by buying your ticket through a slightly different approach. He also guided us through last year's travel from Venice to Zagreb.

But now it's time to go plan a more modest adventure, one that will take us by foot or by bike to a table in some welcoming restaurant not far from the Mediterranean where we'll enjoy some seasonal specialty or other for lunch. Drink a glass or two of wine. And surely a long afternoon nap as we enjoy a quiet place to ourselves for the first time in over a week (We're hardy enough travellers, we think, for a mid-60s couple, but it's been tiring, and a few of those nights in the different beds were sleepless ones). Then the Wee Italian will be home from daycare, trailing her Papa behind her (he's doing pick-up today; our turn next week).  So I'm not sure how much time I'll have for responding to comments, but I welcome and love reading them . . . 

A dopo . . . 

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