12th September 2011

We are now in Switzerland. The scenery in southern Austria is fantastic but you know you are in Switzerland as soon as you hit the border. Everything is on such a grand scale. The mountains, the mountain passes that you have to traverse to get from one place to another, the scenery, it is all just spectacular. We had to travel about 500km to get from our apartment in Austria to Saas-Fee in Switzerland. It took us 10 hours and over so many mountain passes, I lost count. The disappointing thing is that you can't take photos on the passes as you can't stop. We might have to do a motorhome holiday so that we can pull up anywhere anytime to do some hiking in these remote but amazing landscapes.

The town we are staying at first is Saas-Grund. It is half-way along a valley called the Saastal and the major town is called Saas-fee. Saas-fee is a small town suspended high above the valley floor and is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and glaciers in excess of 4000m, one being the highest mountain in Switzerland, The Dom. We walked up the mountain to Saas-fee and caught the bus back down. The apartment we are staying at provides free bus travel and free chair lifts throughout the valley so it is extremely good value. And it is a very nice apartment as well.

This pass is one of  4 passes that provide access in and out of this valley. It is on the main southern route from east to west Switzerland. There is a pass to go north, south, east or west, and there is no other way. The above photos are of the pass going north which we didn't take. As you can imagine, this is motorcyclists heaven.

                                     This is looking back on the pass we came down from the east

                               The is looking down to Saas-grund on our walk up to saas-fee

                                                        Looking down the valley from Saas-fee

    Looking across the valley to the Kreuzboden chair-lift's middle station, the finish point for tomorrow's hike