Crossing the Alpes

As we are travelling with a smaller camper at the moment, we decided to do some of the famous passes over the Alps, which were still open. We started our tour at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, where we had spent the night close to the border to Austria.

Our route took us past the Zugspitze, a famous mountain, over the Fernpass (1,216m) to the Inn valley. We followed the river south and had to take a little detour through Switzerland, as the road on the Austrian side was under construction. We reached the Reschenpass (1,507m) and crossed into Italy, stopping at the famous Reschensee with its church tower.

The famous church tower @ Reschensee

The real mountain pass was next, we turned west to tackle the Passo dello Stelvio or Stilfser Joch (2,757m). The pass will be closed after this weekend for winter. As the weather was still perfect, many cyclists, bikers and car drivers were crossing the pass, enjoying the great scenery of the Ortler mountains and its glaciers.

Ortler
Passo dello Stelvio

The way up to the pass was a fascinating road with narrow hairpins, at some we even had to reverse to get around.

At the pass, we met photographers waiting patiently for some bearded vultures to appear. I’m not sure if they were lucky, but we spotted one on the way down.

Checking the glaciers

That day, we ended near Bormio, the starting point for the pass in the South.

We will travel now through Italy before we will have to cross the Alps for a second time.

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