86. San Gottardo Pass. Switzerland

Last Saturday we left Italy to return to France and the final two weeks of our very long holiday.   

The plan was to head north from Lugano through the San Gottardo pass in Switzerland, continuing north through Luzern and Basel until we reached the Swiss-German border on the Rhine, and then turn left into France.   It sounds incredible doesn't it?  But realistically, it is about equivalent of Melbourne to Swan Hill.   However ... there is one big difference - there are these big mountains called "the Alps" between where we started and where we wanted to go!  

From Lugano, we went north through Bellinzona and headed towards hills.  Trouble hit twenty kilometres from the San Gottardo tunnel.  We know this because our GPS warned us about heavy traffic ahead and suggested we detour via Zurich.  Not believing the GPS (and not having a map - hence not knowing exactly what was involved in detouring to Zurich) I ignored the advice and we came to a dead halt.

This is where we stopped.  The A2.  Switzerland's main north-south road.

I snapped the scenery as we crawled along for about 50 minutes.

Finally .... we got to San Gottardo South and about 5 km past here we took a chance, pulled off the motorway and decided to cross the Alps via the mountain pass, rather than through the motorway tunnel.  

We thought we were being quite brave.  We thought it would be a second class road and we would face death on every bend.

It does look pretty daunting - don't you think?

But it was fabulous!    This is the road we came up!  The San Gottardo South service area (previous photos) is down there in the valley just before the reservoir.  We climbed up this fabulous road ...

... and at the top, we stopped at this former army bunker to look at the amazing view (and have a coffee, of course).

I think, when the mountains are this size, the roads avoid the sharp and dangerous corners and precipice ledges that occur on smaller hills.  Everything is so enormous and so steep.  And the roads and bridges are engineering masterpieces.

Once we hit the top and drove along the flat plateau with its lakes and hikers and motor bike riders and cyclists, we began the descent.  The water running off the mountains down these steep, rocky craters is milky white.  I guess the water is very pure, the limestone rock is white and the water is travelling fast - so the water looks whitish.  You have to look carefully but this stream is full and running swiftly.  A lot of water for the second week of Autumn after an incredibly hot summer.

If you look carefully you can see the road descending the mountain above the railway line, which is in the gallery.

It wasn't until we got to this point that we discovered that this road over the mountains is actually the San Gottardo Pass.  The new, all-weather road on the freeway below is the San Gottardo Tunnel.  We saw photos of the methods used in the past to travel through the Alps and through this pass.  Remember the American stage coach with four horses and a driver who cracks the whip ... well, they had those here, too.  In winter!   In the snow and ice!   I was horrified just looking at the postcards. There is no way I could come to Europe in winter.  No way!

Gotthard

The traffic jam went all the way to Luzern where there were road works.  Once through these the roads cleared and we reached the north-west corner of Switzerland very quickly and before we knew it, we were in France and on the road to Mulhouse in Alsace.  

I didn't get to see the river Rhine or to cross into Germany,  but this area of Alsace seems to be very German.  

So after a day of mind-boggling scenery and traffic jams we arrived in Mulhouse and found the coolest place in town, the garden of the local osteria (inn) ... and in the courtyard ...

... a wedding!  What else?  Well, actually, it was a christening.  Mother-of-the-baby's family along the wall side.  Father-of-the-baby's family along the garden side.  Never the twain shall meet! The baby was passed from the wall side to the garden side to be shown off and admired, and then back to the wall side to be fed.  The food was in no man's land in the middle.

And another perch in this town - a stork's nest ... on the church roof.

Mulhouse

Next - Le Cite de l'Automobile - Mulhouse.