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Now we were only two days & a hundred miles away from Porlezza on Lake Lugano, where we'd make base camp for the remainder of the trip. Only one pass stood in our way - Splügenpasse. We were told that the best was yet to come (even after Stelvio), & I think this was correct, with the ride from Filisur to Borgonuovo (just outside Chiavenna) being my favourite of the whole trip (despite the headwind).
We set off early with a bit of a gravel path to join the main road to avoid going back on ourselves. It was a bit of a lumpy morning, which was tough without breakfast. We eventually found a Coop in Thusis & bought enough food for lunch as well. Leaving there, we immediately turned into a dramatic valley with very steep, high walls - Viamala. While this literally translates as bad path, it was a beautiful, quiet (the motorway, which spent most of its time in tunnels it seemed, sucked away loads of traffic), smooth road twisting along this gorge in the trees with a turquoise glacial river deep below.
Eventually this opened out into a wider valley & we rode through the cobbled streets of a town (Andeer) where we found a Volg to spend the last of our Swiss Francs as we were leaving Switzerland that day. @Tor managed to spend every last centime! Thank goodness for pick & mix. After that, we climbed a few quiet switchbacks & around Sufnersee (a big lake) up to Splügen where we had a picnic lunch in the town square.
Climbing straight south out of Splügen, we were immediately doing the first of several sections of wiggles. A guy on a hybrid joined the road out of a housing estate, just coming behind us - he'd be pacing us the entire climb! The first section wasn't too bad, & then the road straightened a bit & went up the side of the valley & into the upper course. This was dramatic. The wind had died down for us & the views of the mountain peaks were spectacular. At the end of this section, the road climbed through many switchbacks up the side & eventually round to the top of the valley. Looking back, the view was incredible! A huge mountain which Splügen sat at the base of offered an impressive backdrop. Thankfully, at this point, our hybrid pacer caught us up & we asked him to take a photo of us - he very kindly obliged. We later saw him hanging outside a café with some other people near the reservoir on the other side. I think one of the best bits of this climb was that we saw so few cars - just us & the mountain.
The descent from the top at first was fast with only a few switchbacks & then a flat section section around Lago di Montespluga. After this, it got really intense, with switchbacks, tunnels, balconies & some sketchy road surfaces piled on top of each other in various permutations. You couldn't lose concentration for a second! We had a long way to descend from the top to Chiavenna & it kept on going on & on! We eventually found the town & then did a very scenic route through it along some bike paths up to our campsite - Camping Acquafraggia Di Lisignoli Guido. The campsite was great. Good facilities, views of a gigantic waterfall, little room to hang out with, fridge for food & they sold wine in the reception! Popped back into town for some food & then played cards with a few glasses in the campsite. Lovely.
The next morning there was a heavy, low cloud which misted up the valley. We followed some very straight bike paths down to lake Mezzola, & then some strada bianca down to lake Como. Lake Como! Felt like a long time since we were there. Heading down along the shoreside (which was really quite busy compared to what we'd got used to) to Menaggio, we dived into a café in Dongo to avoid some rain. The weather cleared soon after, & we had some gelato in Menaggio overlooking the very clear lake. From here, we climbed up over to Porlezza to complete our loop.
During our stay in Porlezza on the second night, we got chatting to a couple in the next pitch who said that there was an old railway line which had been converted into a bike path linking Porlezza & Menaggio. We found this & it was a great alternative to the main road, albeit a bit greasy from the rain of the day & fallen leaves of early autumn. On the way back to our first campsite we stocked our musettes full of food from Carrefour & had a BBQ for tea & after a quick dip in the lake. Five hundred miles of the alps, done!
Photos:
- Steep walls of viamala.
- Switchbacks in the trees.
- Photo taken by the guy on the hybrid.
- Looking down to Lago di Montespluga.
- The insanity of descending the south side of Splügenpasse. I randomly Streetviewed this road before we went & ended up on this spot & knew I had to do this road. Now have my own photo!
- Gelato in Menaggio.
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- Steep walls of viamala.
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Best day ever. Splügen had everything you could wish from a day riding bikes in the Stunning Alps. Pretty sure we had brunch here though ;-) https://goo.gl/afK5og
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Yay! I hope this thread serves useful. I've enjoyed writing it & logging our experiences & the little bits of detail of our adventure. It's such a fantastic area to visit, so many great roads, I feel like we barely scratched the surface in some parts! I'm yet to cover some of the four day rides we did around Porlezza. Some nice stuff to do around there too.
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This looks like a great road. Thank you.
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To this day, Splügenpasse remains one of the best mountain passes I've ever done, it was wild! My wife even included it in her wedding speech, aha.
Been thinking about this holiday recently as we did Albulapasse on this trip, & that's where Gino Mäder sadly lost his life. Do remember coming up to the top section being pretty wide & open, easy to see how you could go very fast there & a small mistake comes with a hefty cost. Sad stuff.
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Not that I'm from Duisburg, I did however somehow miss the type of 1st class carriages on these trains to Switzerland. Never mind, the bike is in 1st class.
Tor
fredtc
fussballclub-
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About
September 2018 - Italy & Switzerland
Posted by
@GideonPARANOID
It rained all night & the tent was soaking, & we were at about 1,600m in a deep valley so it was rather chilly. We spent all evening in a cleaning room playing cards but in the morning found a proper heated communal room upstairs in the campsite block - annoying! We were fine anyway. We had a quick breakfast & set off up Stelvio.
Wow, what a climb! We managed to start early so the bottom was blissfully quiet through the trees. After the treeline (really quite high up here) it was noisier with the climb being popular with motorcyclists & drivers, as well as cyclists. Saw someone topple off their motorbike on a switchback, the plonker. As we climbed the views opened up & we got that view up the valley of all the switchbacks. Absolutely incredible engineering! We rode together for most of it, but I decided to gun it for the last three kilometres. Tough work with camping gear. @Tor 's phone's GPS stopped working, so later on she uploaded my GPX file & got a QOM on the top section with my effort. Cheating, mind!
The descent into Bormio was just as spectacular. Wide open corners at the top, down into tight switchbacks again, & then out into beautiful curves & galleries hugging the wall of the valley. Then more switchbacks! Lovely & varied. While it was cold at the top (~11C), it absolutely roasting at the bottom at lunchtime (~28C). It was surprisingly tough to find lunch in Bormio, but eventually got hold of a few piadinas & then cracked on to Livigno.
This day was probably our hardest day of climbing -another 1,200m to climb after lunch over Passo del Foscagno & Passo Eira. The first one was a real drag - rubbish roads & high heat at the bottom, but the top was enjoyable with a man at a fruit stand giving us each an apple. On the sign we noticed a sticker from The Green Welly Stop - a shop we've been to a previous tour! Last year in Scotland, we arrived drenched at that shop on World Buckfast Day & bought their entire supply of Buckfast to further drown our sorrows. Small world! After that pass, we entered a weird duty-free zone & finally got down into Livigno.
The campsite we found in Livigno (Camping Pemont) wasn't great - expensive (can't remember how much), no grass for pitching, 1€ for a four minute shower. Despite being in a duty-free area, & still being in Italy, it wasn't a cheap place. Again, this was due to its popularity as a ski resort.
In the morning it was freezing cold & someone stole our only Europlug USB charger (which fits Swiss plugs) & one of our battery banks. Annoyed & cold, we headed back into Switzerland via Forcola Pass. However it's a beautiful, relatively easy pass so we quickly warmed up & forgot about the theft playing guess the height & guess the number of tunnels until the top. At the top we were in Switzerland again, & after a short descent, we were back to climbing up Bernina pass. The views of icy peaks shrouded in clouds made this a mysterious & exciting pass, & at the top we were presented with a stunning lake & view of its parent glacier. The descent was tailwindy & straight & I managed to set a new fastest speed I've ever been on a bike (49.9mph), beating my last effort descending the B6255 towards the Ribblehead Viaduct.
We rolled along downhill a fair way & tried to find lunch in a small town in Switzerland on a Sunday - tough work. Settled for bread & cheese again from an Avec in Samedan & then shot along to La Punt-Chamues-ch to climb Albulapasse. The climb was a bit meh. Consistently steep out of La Punt, & then easing off towards the wide upper valley where we saw lots of Marmots. The descent was pretty crazy. It was here I came to realise that the acronym FKW also applies to motorcyclists, one making a very rude gesture at me for not letting him pursue his racing line into a corner. Idiot. The white-rock train tracks bridges spiralling around you while descending were a beautiful distraction from all that though. Shame about the road surface in some parts.
We camped just outside Filisur in a lovely little campsite. We got the tent up before it started raining too much & had a drink in the campsite bar, waiting for it to stop. It being a Sunday meant that finding food was tough again (campsite restaurant was closed), but we eventually found a lively little restaurant & ate yet another four cheese pizza under a canopy of grapes. Lovely.
Photos:
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