Eurotrip day 3 27th Sep 2010 – Italy

We woke up about 8.30am warm and cosy in our little apartment. We opened the window blinds to reveal the views, which we were unable to see in the darkness of the previous night. It was quite a view! Mountains rising up beyond the other houses and the town, and we noted a steep looking road up the side of a mountain and watched a lorry going up it which looked like a toy! What a road to travel up – not good if you don’t like heights!

We had breakfast from the food left in the kitchen for us of yoghurts, cheese, ham, rye bread, regular bread, honey, jam and cereal washed down with lots of tea. We ate at a table by the window looking at the view and the sunshine across the valley. After breakfast we had a walk around the town and found that many shops in Switzerland do not open Monday mornings but open after lunch, that seems like a nice idea! We found a supermarket open and went in for some lunch bits and a swiss roll. Though it is called roulade disappointingly rather than swiss roll!

We hit the road again at about 11am after handing in the key to our room and paying. Salzmann asked where we were going and we said to Lake Garda. He asked what our route was to Italy and if we were planning on crossing the mountains as many of the passes are now shut. He said Simplon Pass was just about open still but would be very slippery with splits in the road from the freezing weather. I wasn’t entirely sure with Tom Tom if that’s where we were going, but the roads seemed to be main roads so I thought we would be ok. We said goodbye to Salzmann and went to the nearest petrol station to get a full tank to leave Switzerland for Italy.

We left Naters and joined the motorway out towards Simplon. The motorway was then downgraded to a main road whilst we were on it and started to climb. The road got steeper and we realised we had joined the steep road we could see from our room window! The road went up and up and we stopped to get some pictures. There was a large bridge across the valley and it dawned on me that this was the road we were actually on and you could see it wind round the mountainside and over the valley floor up high on to the next mountain! We set off again and followed the road round to this bridge and I rode across it with jelly legs while Alexa checked out the views over either side. The road then went round a sharp bend and up and up still higher stating the Simplon Pass was 4km away. Perhaps we were doing this mountain pass then!

The cloud level and snow was getting closer as we got higher up and water running across the road was starting to stop and sparkle, ice with only a barrier between us and sheer drop was rather daunting! Parts of the mountain pass were undercover as the road wound up round the mountain until we were in a fog in the bottom of the cloud base before the road started to wind back down again. At 2000 meters high and about 12.30pm we stopped to get a hot chocolate and a slice of apple pie and some pictures of the snowy mountains within touching distance!

We got back on the road, all downhill now, and came across the Swiss-Italian border crossing. Nobody paid us much attention and we carried on down. There were another couple of check points, and unsure of what we were meant to do we proceeded slowly but we weren’t stopped. So we were now in Italy! We carried on down the mountains getting warmer as we got lower. We joined the Auto Strada to Milan passing Lakes Lugano and Como and I rode until about 2pm when we stopped for some lunch and petrol. The weather was hot and sunny and it was good to be warm.

After lunch we continued towards Lake Garda and had another 100 miles to go. We cruised down the road and finally saw signs counting down the kms to Peschiera del Garda, where we were travelling to. Finally we reached the junction and came off. I rode through part of the town and Tom Tom took us directly to our accommodation. We were grateful to arrive about 6pm and we unpacked the bike before we rushed to the supermarket before it shut at 7pm. We found some bruschetta bread which we bought amongst many other things for breakfast before heading back to our chalet. Alexa made some bruschetta and we found ourselves warm and comfortable in Italy to start our holiday!