Rather than taking the usual route over the San Bernardino Pass we decided to take the smaller Splügen which was a quicker route to Italy. Splügen is also a really cute ski resort that we'll hopefully try out this winter! This pass sits at 2,115 metres above sea level and is only open in the summer and it is pretty windy for a little while, there were some vans and larger cars struggling with the tight turns. I was on the ball in aiding Tim's navigation by yelling "HAIRPIN" when a turn was coming up... I am an excellent co-pilot!
I popped a little map in so you can zoom in and out and have a mini virtual tour!
Once we emerged on the Italian side, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining!
The first town you pass through is called 'Montespluga', (if you look it up on google street view you can see it from Oct 2011 and its snowy!). The lake is quite big and surrounded by mountains, it feels like it should be in Scandinavia almost!
Isn't the colour of the mountain lakes so beautiful?
All of the buildings are traditional stone built with stone roofs and are super cute!
There is only one road down and, being a Saturday it was quite busy, mostly with groups of motorbikes which kept speeding off then stopping further down for photos, acting like a rather annoying swarm of bees. The road down is very windy and some parts of the tunnels are one lane so you need to be very careful and make sure nobody is coming up before you proceed, obviously the bikers didn't do this and almost came a-cropper a number of times. It was annoying to say the least! This pass is a really great way to take the scenic route from Switzerland to Italy but if the weather is bad or if its especially busy it will be a little hard going so always be careful on these little mountain roads! If you're renting a car, take the extra insurance!!
To get to Lake Como you follow the road down until it comes to a split at Chiavenna and you want to take the SS36 towards Campo. We then went on the right hand side of Lake Como (SS340dir) The road takes you through the little traditional towns and right alongside the river!
We stopped at a super market and bought some bread, cheese and prosciutto and found a bench by the lake in Domaso to eat lunch while watching the boats!
After dining alfresco we drove through some more of the towns along Lake Como, which was amazing for people watching! I kept an eye out for George Clooney but he was probably having a nespresso somewhere!
After a while we decided to head back up to Switzerland and the rain and back home. Not a bad little afternoon drive! I don't know why but it seems that the Swiss don't pop over the borders for a day or two, at least when we talk to people about it they look at us like we're crazy! Any thoughts on this?
Thanks for reading! Yasmin x
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