Ausflüge nach der Schweiz und Italien (Part II)

Livignio Countryside

We leave Liechtenstein, and now Trevor is driving. He's a bit more aggressive, and I'm sitting in the back with Brian and Anna. We're on our way back to the highway, and we're hungry. Ultimately we made the decision after search with Holly for other placed to eat in the vicinity. Holly was pretty good and giving us a good selection, but it ultimately led to time. We decide to stop at a Marché, a rest area along the side of the freeway. At 8:30 there were a lot people there. Again to our extreme luck, what was supposed to be a relatively quick pit stop get something to eat took again more time than expected. This time a huge tour bus of hungry Swiss Germany teenagers get off, and literally swarm the restaurant. We of course get there right after. After figuring out what the situation was, we decided to eat there. Marché has stations where you can choose what to eat and they prepare it for you. That's a great idea, except for the price factor, which is more than any restaurant that I've been to in Radolfzell. Prices per person could easily reach 20CHF per person. I decided to be smart and help myself to a very generous portion of chicken and roasted potatoes. They didn't weigh the plates so I took as much as I could load onto the plate, and then took an extra plate and split the meal with Brian. I didn't buy a drink, salad or dessert, and my meal (Chicken with Vegetable Side) was 15 CHF. But since I was clever, I paid only 7.50 CHF. It took us about 20 minutes to regroup for dinner and start eating. Trevor got Schnitzel which took the longest. We were all done by the time he sat down. He had to scarf down his food unfortunately. After quickly stopping at the quick mart for Brian to buy a pop, we were on our way again. This time, since it was dark, I was driving again.

After merging onto the highway from Marché, we travelled about 3 miles, and then had to take our exit onto the secondary roads. It was quite dark so we couldn't see the Alps, but we were entering Alp territory. According to Holly, we were only 45 minutes out of Davos, a good sign we though. Holly navigated us perfectly. By the time we exit the tunnel that leads to Davos, the navigation screen shows a loop de loop of roads and wants us to literally travel in circles. We listen, but realized finally that she had taken us to a train station, where we were supposed to board the train with the car and take the train through the mountains. That would have been great, except for the price tag (19 CHF - for the car, not sure if people have to pay too) and the fact that it was so late that it was not operating. For a moment, I was unsure what to do. The only other road our of Davos seemed to go in the opposite direction than that which we needed to travel. Finally, I redirected Holly and asked her to bypass the train thing, and she takes us forward. At this point, it's really dark, we're in the mountains, there are trees everywhere, and it's foggy, chilly and we're tired. I like driving at night though, so I was excited to be driving in the mountains on the serpentine roads. I listen to Holly and we continue driving down the road which I doubted.

Holly took us through the Fuela Pass, which is approximately 2500m high. Our car, had a nifty feature that told us our altitude. Along the pass, where the road serpentined, we took a break to look at the stars. Everything was so clear and air so crisp. It was amazing. We were so happy we had made it this far! We all get out and go into the nearby field. We have to jump a wire line, which actually was electric. We all go slightly electrocuted but didn't mind. We spent about 10 minutes looking at the stars, marveling out the peacefulness of the landscape. Trevor and Patrick make a comment however that there are these strange brown things on the ground. I hadn't seem them, but then again, I did venture too far off from the road as it was cold. The car read 4˚C ~ 41˚F.

We get back in the car, and continue on our way. It's about 9:30 by now. We drive through the pass and are literally immersed in the Alps. Immediately we see a difference in the towns and their architecture. It really looks different, and the language now is Romansch, the 4th official language of Switzerland. We drive the road Holly is telling us to take. We then enter the Swiss National Park and are driving through, what seems to be stunning scenery (except that it was dark). We finally are about 15km from Livignio, but still in Switzerland. It's 10:17pm and the tunnel that we are to take that goes directly to Livignio is CLOSED! Like closed for the night. It closed at 10pm. We were 17minutes too late. All of us were so discouraged. We couldn't believe it, and literally were just sitting there in front of the tunnel, which was barricaded and shut, like a garage. We were parked basically at the Swiss border station. We decide to call the Hotel to tell them our problem, perhaps they know of a better way. Despite having Holly, we also had a map, which I have to give credit to Anna for bringing along in any case. It was extremely helpful here, as we had to find another way through the mountains to Livignio. Concurrently, I was setting Holly to bypass the tunnel and recalculate the route. According to her, the new route would take us over 200km extra kilometers (130 miles) and 4 hours to complete, giving us a new arrival time into Livignio of 2:30am. That sucked! As I was talking to the owner of the hotel, he told to take the St. Barnardino Pass by St. Moritz. I asked him about another pass closer (as I thought he meant the directions Holly was telling us). He said that that pass also closed, but even earlier. However, he was busy and he had to call us back. We hung up, and then immediately in a BMW X3 arrived the Swiss border patrol. They asked us what we were doing, and we explained that we needed to go to Livignio. They were much friendlier, and their German understandable (as their native language is Romanch). They told us that we also had to go toward St. Moritz, but said the route to Livignio would take 4-5 hours. So Holly was right. Oddly, the Hotel owner told us 1 and 1/2 hours. We drove to the closest town to see if we could spend the night there, as no one wanted to go 4-5 hours to Livignio only to sleep in the next morning out of fatigue. We go to the first town, there are a couple of hotels there, and the hotel owner comes out and tells us he can give us a special student special of 50 CHF per person. This is the equivalent of what were paying in Livignio. But we'd have to share a bathroom, and Anna would have to be separate from everyone else since she was a female. We decided to think about it. Nobody else was going to come, unless they also planned on traveling through the tunnel and got stuck on the Swiss side. We called the hotel owner back in Livignio. He tells us that he cannot refund our money for our rooms (we had made the reservations that morning over email), but he said that it was not possible. He did say though, we could come another time for the same rate, like the following night. Uhh, we were only planning on one night. That would have really broken the budget. We decide that we will go ahead and drive to Livignio.

By this time our spirits were actually really high. We were laughing at how many obstructions caused us to miss the closing of the tunnel. We recalled the day at every single thing that could have changed and then we'd would have made the tunnel. I was driving towards St. Moritz. The radio was a mix of Yodeling, American Rap, Alpine Mountain Music and Swiss Oldies. We drove into the night, and were on our way. Right near the Italian border, there was a road that led to our East. Holly had told us to continue to travel straight, but apparently this was the St. Bernardino Pass. Right where the junction was, we saw a camper van turn onto the road and so we follow. Technically this road was also closed, but the border patrol wasn't there, and it wasn't blocked off. And since there was a car in front of us, we felt safer driving behind them. The pass took us pretty high up. It was 11:45pm and we were actually only 15 minutes from Livignio. We cross the pass, enter the valley and quickly find our hotel. It's 12:15, we wake up the owner, check-in to our rooms and quickly fall asleep. We were so happy to have found this short-cut.

(The front grille of our Opel. Click the photo and read the license plate frame)