Date: 2008-02-15
To: Rome
Miles today: 0.0

Hi allMade it to Rome, had a very hectic few days and was unable to write, up the mountians the cost of the internet was rather prohibitive so decided to wait till Rome. We caught the glacier express from St. Moritz to Zermatt as planned and it was a 9 hour trip. St. Moritz was one of the first places that alpine skiing was introduced, and is the most exclusive ski resort in all of europe. It is now mostly owned by the Russians, the billionaires, before that it was the arab oil that owned the place. It is a fascinating place, and in the evening we went for a walk up the steep hill to take a walk around the resort. There are rolls royce cars at many of the hotels, so it gives you an idea of who the clientelle are. I made a mistake in my last post saying that the mountians were above 4000m, that was wrong it should of been 3000m, either way they are still huge. The glacier express was everything it was built up to be. The train was very spacious and comfortable, and the roof was glass so you had uniterupted views of the scenery. As already mentioned St Moritz was the birth of alpine winter tourism in 1864 and it has a 33 meter leaning bell tower, which I took many pictures of, looks like the leaning tower of pisa. After leaving st. Moritz you go through the towns of Preda and Bergun, there are 6 towering viaducts, three spiral tunnels, and two helical tunnels, this enables the height difference of 400 meters to be scaled. From Preda the longest toboggan run in the world starts, it accompanies the railway line for much of its journey down the valleys, and stretches for over 10kms, the speed of the sleighs is pretty incredible. Many of the tunnels go right through the middle of the mountians. The biggest viaduct has a height of 65 meters and a length of 130m and it consists of 5 pillars and leads in a curved path with a 100m radius into the landwusser tunnel. It is hard to beleive that all that I have mentioned thus far was built in 1898. The entire time there are massive mountians towering on each side, they are relatively young in age, so they have not been weathered much, so they are very steep and rugged. The railine descends into the town of Chur which is the oldest town in switzerland. Next up is the Rhine Gorge right at the bottom of the valley, this area has all been carved out by the last Ice Age, it is very steep and is locally known as the Swiss grand canyon, it is so spectacular. Switzerland is made up of many languages and around the town of Disentis is the largest romansh speaking community. It has many churches and abbeys, there are many such towns along the journey. You can look up on a mountian far above the train, and see a massive spire pointing skywards. It is hard to fathom the small places that people have placed houses and public buildings. THis part of the railway was opened in 1903 and made much of what was land that was inaccessible opened up. The most spectacular part of the whole trip is the Oberalp pass, the engine does not have enough peower to get the train up the mountain just by its wheels so it utilizes a cog wheel. THis pass is 2,033m above sea level. On the way upto the pass the mountians were once again massive and it is possible to make out skiers tracks in the powder snow on the faces of the distant mountains, they use helicopters to drop them off and pick them up. At the pass there were people skiing all around us, and alongside the train. The snow was so powdery and soft, I just wanted to get out and join them. Chairlifts were passing overhead, and skiers passed under the train via small tunnls to link up the different runs. For much of the journey the train is just one track and then it has sidings for the trains travelling in the opposite direction to pass. You rarely have to wait more than a minute for the other train coming the other way, you can set yoru watch by the trains in this country. The other amasing thing is how smooth the trip is, even on a train journey that twists and turns, travelling over some of the most inhospitable and mountainous country on earth, it is still perfectly smooth, with people consuming 3 course meals on the train, and drinking wine and not spilling a drop. Try doing that on the the trains between Geelong and Melbourne, you would wear your wine.The next town we descended down into was Andermatt, I could not beleive the steepness of the descent as we twisted and wound our way down the side of a mountain. The next section was through a long wide valley, that gets very heavy deep snow, thousands of people were out cross country skiing in the valley around us, the skill of the swiss in skis is something to watch. Finally at the bottom of the valley we made it to Brig. THis is where we will catch the train from to ROme in a few days time. The last section takes you upto the famous ski resort of Zermatt. THis section of railway is wild as it passes through avalanche protection structures and tunnels, the surrounding mountains are so steep that very little snow is able to settle upon them. Finally we arrive in Zermatt and it is a beuatifully very Swiss alpine village, it is at a height where most of our mountians would peek, yet around us are most of Europes 4000m mountains. Some of the mountains are swiss and others are Italian, the resort crosses both countries, and sometimes it is hard to know which country you are in. Nice way to enter italy for the first time via a snowboard. The resort town is amasing, and you could fit all of Australias skii villages into it and still it would be much bigger. Dominating the skyline is the Matterhorn, and if you do not know what it looks like do yourself a favour and go out and buy a toblerone, the mountian is pictured on the packaging.This town would be our home for the next few days as Nick and I headed off to do some snowboarding. We caught a train up the top fo the mountains. Mount Rosa is the highest at 4634m, but it is the matterhorn that is the most spectacular at a height of 4478, it is a huge rock shapped like a chruch spire twisting its way skyward. I was skiing down these awesome runs and was able to look up and see the matterhorn. This was the greatest scenary I had ever seen in my life, and those unfamiliar to this type of environment can not really imagine what it is like. The highest chairlift takes you upto 3899, but we went upto the Gornegrat 3089m. I found the whole experience on the trins that go up the moutain rather scary, it is so steep, and impossible to beleive the places they have built this trainline. There are also Gondolas that you can catch up the mountain. After the first run I almost collapsed, had to lay on the snow and catch my breathe, It was so long, and so high, the air was so thin. The runs are so steep, and in sections would rival any black run in Australia, but these are the easiest runs on the mountain. After 2 days on the baord we both had imporved dramatically, the terrain and the difficulty of the conditions makes you improve. It was a great experience, in perfect sunshine and blue skies. You have not skiied until you have done it in switzerland. We had great accomodation right next to the train station, and it was less than 100 steps to catch the train up the mountain. I had an awesome time, the snowboarding was so thrilling, but today walking around Rome my legs are so sore, but it was well worth it.We caught the overnight train at 9pm from Zermatt to Rome and arrived in Rome at 9pm this morning, we had to change trains to catch our sleeper at Visp. It was about midnight when we got on the sleeper, we hoped inot our tiny little bunks and then climbed a pass of more than 2000m, hard to sleep when you are rolling from one side of the train to the other. I estimate that we must have been deep within Italy somewhere near Milan before I drifted off to sleep.Switzerland is the most amasing place on earth, everything works perfectly, everything so so efficient, nothing is waisted. Everything runs to a perfect schedule, and now we are in Rome and everything is the complete opposite. A quick comaprison is the bathrooms of the hostels we have been staying in. The swiss ones were so clean, you could not find a hair or a piece of grim if you got on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass. The bathroom in the Rome hostel has hair and muck all over the place. The shower heads are broken, you end up standing in water above yoru ankles because it will not drain. The sink in the bathrooms or the kitchen do not have hot water. The toilet in all of the bathrooms except one is broken, the toilet seat falls off, and it has signs on the wall suggesting that you should not put too much toilet paper down the dunny or it will clog up. In Switzerland the bathrooms looked brand new and everything worked perfectly, the streets were spotless. In Rome it is the opposite, but it has the most maginifecent buildings, today I retraced the footsteps of Ceaser, Augustus, Hadrian, the colloseum was beyond my expectations in its shear size. We walked past Trevi fountain, and it was the most romantic place I have ever been to in my life, and I am not that way inclined. The Pantheon was more spectacular than anything in England, I almost felt Catholic for a brief moment, around every corner there was something more magical and exciting, there is so much packed into this city. The place might be organised chaos, but it works, and it has a real buzz about it, of all the cities in Europe I have seen so far this was by far the best, so I guess who cares if the toilet seat falls off as your crouch down to have a crap, it is a small price to pay.