Day seven – Pontresina
| Distance today – 218 km | Journey time – 5h 10m |
| Total trip distance – 2,220 km | Total journey time – 1d 11h 10m |
We went to bed having looked at the passes for day seven, to prepare ourselves for more closures given the snowfall the evening before. It didn’t look great.
When we woke, and checked again, everything was open! Lots of warnings of snow and ice on the road, but everything was open. And we had winter tyres, so snow and ice are meaningless to us.
A cracking view from bed awaited us, then breakfast – a good selection of really good quality fare. They even had a machine you inserted your plate into, for it to deposit a roundel of fresh butter.
Something like 5 hours in the car was planned, taking in a host of passes – Bernina, Livigno, Stelvio, Umbrail, Fuorn (aka Offen) and Flüela. We set off earlier than normal as we had a plan for the late afternoon. The first couple of passes took us through various ski resorts, and a lot of roadworks which kept cars and lorries together in groups.
A lucky stop happened early on, in the Bernina pass, where we stopped to look at the view and saw two photographers with kit set up on tripods, obviously waiting for something. Turns out we’d arrived about 3 minutes before the hourly train crossed the pass. Spectacular!
Bernina and Livigno passes:
With the Bernina and Livigno passes done, it was onto the main event, the Stelvio. The road was incredible leading up the valley, criss-crossing in famous fashion, before summiting at Stelvio. On the way up the roads were really narrow in places, and we came across 8 or so BMW test mules being taken back down the pass, towards us. They were hard to distinguish because of their camouflage markings, but likely new 7-Series test platforms given their size. And fully electric. They waved at us as we passed by.
As we neared the summit the snow appeared and the roads got really icy, then covered in snow for the last kilometre or so. I have to say, the winter tyres were excellent. There was some movement, but not much. It was only slightly worrying coming back down when there were no barriers. Once at the top the snow was really deep, and the road over the other side was closed – impassable for a fair distance. We had planned to descend and come back up, but not today. Another to save for another time.
Stelvio pass (2 parts!):
From here we retraced our stops to the top of the Umbrail Pass, which was treacherous at the top but quickly cleared and turned into a pretty and green Alpine valley. Then the Fuorn Pass (also known as the Offenpass), which was equally green. The final pass of the day was Flüela, which was a lot snowier than any of the others that day.
Umbrail pass:
Fuorn pass:
Flüela pass:
Once back at the hotel we quizzed the staff about using our free rail and cable car tickets (as residents of the hotel) to take us up the Diavolezza, a 4,000m+ peak with a glacier. The plan was to take the train from Pontresina (the same red one we saw that morning) to the cable car, around 20 minutes away, get the cable car to the summit, then once we’d had a look we’d reverse the journey.
The first challenge was getting the train. The station near the hotel was an “on request” stop which meant we had to press a button no earlier than 15 minutes before the train arrived, which would signal it to stop. No way would we have worked that out without the help of some German-speaking tourists!!
Whilst waiting we saw a helicopter, a train travelling in the other direction and Jo found lots of birds to listen to/look at.
Our train was packed, but we got seats and snapped photos of mountains out of the window, until we arrived. We think the cable car was used to take large volumes of skiers to the summit from where they would ski down to Livigno, St Moritz, etc…. given the car park we saw was huge.
A ride to the top took 12ish minutes, enough time to get a good view. The car itself could hold 102 passenger plus the “driver”, a maximum of 8.4 tonnes. There were only a dozen of us.
Once at the top we discovered it was -7 degrees Celsius and windy, so we had a quick look and caught the next cable car down (they leave every 20 minutes, so we were outside for less than 8 minutes!!).
The return train journey was a lot nicer, as we found the bike carriage and had it almost to ourselves! Views out of both sides allowed a lot more photos to be taken! At one point the train turns a full 180 degrees – very sharply!
Once back at the hotel we went via the (very dirty) car to collect our washing, and began the process of replenishing our clean clothes. Whilst waiting we had early starters with a glass of wine, returning later for dinner. Then bed.
