Eight passes in two days!

No, that is not ladies making passes at me. That certainly would not be eight in two days! No, these are the eye-candy passes of Switzerland. And we have been blessed with two days of gloriously fine weather, slightly autumnal but not cold, fully sunny and not a breath of wind. 

We start off riding the grand daddy of the passes, the Stelvio Pass that goes from Italy to Switzerland.  It is a high pass that in about two weeks time will be closed until late April next year. In fact it has beeen closed recently because of early snow and has only been open for a day before we went over.

And talking of going over that is something you do not want to do.  There are 48 very tight hairpin bends coming up the Italy side. Each bend  requires a tight turn of nearly 180 degrees in a turning circle of about 3 metres. Plus an upward slope. Plus an ever changing camber plus traffic coming the other way.  Get the picture!

And talking of pictures here is Stelvio Pass.

Just a fraction of the hairpins 

Then there is the top 

And down the other side (which is a doddle compared with coming up the Italian side). 

Then we pass through chocolate box Swiss villages and landscapes 

There is the lovely smell of new mown grass and hay 

Mountain backdrops everywhere 

All the grass is always about 6 inches high. No long grass, no short grass. I am sure there are Swiss inspectors of grass height who run round in white coats measuring the grass height each week  

And talking of grass high !

A new Swiss industry. Wait until Nestle start putting it in their Swiss chocolate. It will give new meaning to “Mountain high”.

After a glorious day we finish by coming  over our fourth pass for the day. This is Klausen pass. It has special meaning for us. Some 9 years ago Diana and I walked over this pass as part of a trek across Switzerland (the Via Alpina walk that goes right across Switzerland from one side to the other). As we did a hot late afternoon climb up this pass we could hear motorbikes zooming up the zig zag road. Nine years later we find ourselves zooming - whoops - riding sedately of course - up the very same piece of road. 

Klausen pass 

And the same hotel we stayed in. 

The hotel is interesting - the whole building is on a lean. The floors all slope and if feels as if the building is going to fall over. Instead of one of the leading hotels of Switzerland it is one of the leaning hotels of Switzerland!  Truly! 

And as the sun sets 

Now we move to the next day and another perfect day in the saddle. We drop down off Klausen pass ( the hotel is near the top ) and then it is up and over Furkenpass 

From the other side we can see Sustenpass which , with Furkenpass we went over three years ago on our trip to South Africa 

Then more chocolate box scenery 

Note the cow bells. The girlie ones go “ Ting “ and the boy ones go “ Clunk “. Not sure of the sound when boy mets  girl ! 

Even the round abouts in the towns  are flowered 

And thus saturated with beautiful vistas we ride over our last pass from Switzerland into France and arrive at Chamonix for the night. What a wonderful two days!