Rail Tour Through the Alps

(Note: Clicking on any image in this travelogue will bring up a full screen version of the image.)

Monday, September 5
St. Moritz to Baveno, Italy on Lago Maggiore

Today was when our bus driver Giancarlo earned his salary. And a bunch of healthy tips from all his passengers. The 4-hour drive from St. Moritz to Lago Maggiore was all two-lane (except where it narrowed briefly to a lane and a half in spots), and twisted along tight switchbacks down mountainsides, and along narrow terraces gouged between the steep sides of glacial fjords and the lakes that filled them. In fact looking at the maps, the similarity between this terrain and that of the glacially dredged Finger Lakes in upstate New York is striking. True, the Finger Lakes have had a few more millennia to erode, and are not as steep and high, but their outlines betray a similar formation.

Down the mountain from St. Moritz to Menaggio on Lake Como

1. Twisty road down from St. Moritz	2. Twisty road down from St. Moritz	3. Twisty road down from St. Moritz	4. Twisty road down from St. Moritz
5. Twisty road down from St. Moritz	6. Video of the twisty road (1-1/2 lanes wide at this point.)	7. Rainbow	8. ...and the road goes on forever...
9. More lovely scenery	10. Lake Como	11. Ferry	12. The bus on the ferry. (Look at the photo in full screen, and check out the clearance between the mirrors and the walls!)

We had our first bit of rain on the journey as we left St. Moritz. It wasn't long before we were winding our way down the switchbacks on the side of the mountain. That didn't do much to sooth our nerves, as the smooth pavement looked awfully slick as we descended. The bus needed the full width of both lanes to negotiate the turns. But Giancarlo handled it all with aplomb, keeping an eye on the oncoming traffic, and timing it to make those turns in the gaps of the cars coming uphill. We managed to snag a front row seat, and I had a wonderful opportunity to take photos out the enormous windscreen (Photos #1 - 5). We had passed the most dramatic portion of the descent when I remembered that my camera also had video capability. So I also shot some video (Video #6). As we descended further, we ran out of the rain clouds, and came upon an enormous, bright, and beautiful rainbow that preceded us for several minutes (Photo #7).

We crossed the border into Italy, again with no need to display our passports, and reached the town of Menaggio on Lake Como around lunchtime. Lake Como (Photo #10) is one of those bodies of water that resemble the Finger Lakes: a long narrow lake that was a continuation of a valley gouged out by a glacier, and partially filled with water when it receded. We were to save some miles by crossing the lake by ferry. From a distance, the ferry looked not much bigger than the bus it was to carry (Photo 11). And indeed, with much careful maneuvering Giancarlo inched the bus onto the vessel with less than an inch to spare on either side of the big side view mirrors (Photo #12). I wonder about the safety of that process. I don't think Giancarlo could have opened the door if the ferry started to sink.

The ferry did not sink. The bus disembarked from the ferry and we loaded on, and continued south along the shore of Lake Como to the town of Como itself at the lower tip of the lake. This road continued to challenge Giancarlo, as it was barely wide enough for two cars, let alone the bus and anything but a bicycle. I remembered the video this time, and caught some interesting interactions with oncoming traffic including a couple of trucks, with which we had to negotiate right-of-way, and a couple of competition bicyclists in training drafting a scooter at something approaching 30MPH. (Video #13) I missed the most exciting encounter of the ride when an impatient motorcyclist in the oncoming lane pulled out to pass a line of slower cars, and ducked back into his lane right in front of our coach. If the bus had one more coat of paint, the motorcyclist would have been splattered all over it. We stopped for a bit of sightseeing and lunch. But, as usual, there was not enough time for both. So we contented ourselves in finding a nice restaurant in the Cathedral Plaza with a lovely view of (wait for it) the Cathedral. It was a nifty setting with lot of old buildings with interesting architectural features, such as the wrought iron decorations around the windows in Photo #16.

We eventually found our way to the town of Baveno, and checked into Grand Hotel Dino (Photo #18). This was a relatively new and glitzy establishment. But they seemed to put more attention to the glitz than to the convenience of their guests. At the glitz, they were more than successful, as evidenced by the photos above. Everything was gleaming and sparkling and shiny and...well, glitzy. The ground floor area were decorated by enormous stained-glass skylights, and marble columns, and murals, and chandeliers, and inlaid terrazzo floors, and was right impressive.

But with all their emphasis on appearance, they neglected a few practical things. Like a room setup where the desk was situated between the foot of the bed and the opposite wall with so little room that when one person was seated at the desk, another person couldn't walk from one side of the bed to the other. And then there was the toilet (Photo #30) wedged between the wall on my right and the sink on my left with about as much clearance as the coach on the ferry. It's a good thing I'm right-handed, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to wipe my ass. Or a system of light switches so that one could turn on or off any light in the room from either side of the bed or a switch panel by the entrance door, but with no markings on the switches. So it was trial-and error, while perhaps waking up another person who was sleeping by turning on their bedside lamp. And for a while, the lights kept turning themselves off until I called down to the front desk to complain, and they told me I had to insert my key card in a slot near the room door to prevent that. Call me a rube for not being up on the latest of technological wizardry, but I don't think one should be required to read an instruction manual in order to operate a hotel room.

We did a little exploration, both on the extensive hotel grounds and off. The hotel occupied a generous swath of lakefront on Lago Maggiore. The grounds were all manicured (Photos #28 & 29), and there was a lot of beach, and a dock that extended out into the lake for swimming (Photo #24). But the beach had small stones mixed in the sand, and the lake bottom was also stony, which made for treacherous footing while walking in and out of the water. No surprise that most swimmers chose to use the indoor or outdoor pool of the hotel.

We walked to Parco di Villa Fedora, a nice little public park on the beach north of the hotel (depicted on the map on the following page of this travelogue), accessible by crossing a footbridge over a stream that emptied into the lake. As dusk fell, we found a restaurant on the main drag along the shore, had some dinner, and retired for the night.