Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard

On Sunday the weather cleared up a little bit from a week of drizzle and clouds but it wasn't hot or dry enough to go for a picnic or to participate in any other summery activities. The temperature was still well under 20 degrees - 12 degrees on the sign that we passed as we drove through the valley in Martigny which was rather amusing since it's still the middle of summer. I looked at the temperature on the internet of Brisbane earlier that day and it was well above 20 degrees... sigh... But I guess there is nothing I can do about the climate except take it for what it is and enjoy the warm days that we do have here and there.

We've been watching the mountains around us gather a sprinkling of snow in the past week. Winter is coming - hopefully not too soon though, I still want some more days to laze in my hammock. We decided to hop in our little Panda and take it for an adventure up a mountain. We'd thought about going up the Furka pass, which I've heard has some spectacular views but since it takes a couple of hours to reach the top of the pass we decided to leave it for day where we had many hours to explore the pass and enjoy the drive over the other side to Lucerne or Spiez. We thought we might go to Lac d'Emosson to admire the magnificent feat of engineering that is the dam. Apparently there was a smaller dam which was built in 1925 but was later flooded to make way for another dam in 1974. Unfortunately on our way there we were held up in traffic resulting from an accident - or at least we thought that since the traffic definitely wasn't moving either way. We turned our little blue car around, headed back down the mountain to Martigny and went up another big mountain to the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass which is the third highest road pass in Switzerland. An interesting excerpt from wikipedia - Great St. Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps, with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road. 


The pass links Switzerland with Italy and at it's highest, reaches 2,469 m. For majority of the year the pass is closed (wiki - only passable June to September) due to heavy snow, so in the colder months people can use the tunnel to get through to Italy instead. The snow in the pass in winter may be as much as 10 metres deep. The temperature may drop as low as -30°C. The lake in the pass is frozen for 265 days per year. So it wasn't much of a surprise when we got to the top and were surrounded in ice.

The Grand Saint-Bernard pass is historically known for being the home of a hospice for travellers which was founded in 1049, famous for it's use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations. It is often said that they carried small casks of brandy around their necks (although this is only legend) - perhaps where the stereotypical image of a St. Bernard with the cask around it's neck came from. There was no shortage of souvenir, stuffed St. Bernards around - even on a Sunday.

A view of the Rhone Valley, looking towards Sion. 

It was cold... brrrr...

A view from above the Hospice of an Italian hotel just over the border.

Icicles 

So now we're in Italy! 

A view looking back at the hospice from over the Italian border.

We didn't venture too far into Italy because it was getting late but there were some beautiful mountains sprinkled with snow.

It's still such a novelty to cross into another country on a day trip. I only wish we had more time to explore the other side of the pass. Hopefully it won't get too snowy before we get the chance to go up again. We've got until September (hopefully) before the snow gets too heavy.