By Bike

Day 32 (4th September) – Silvaplana to Thusis.

Today promised to be a big day and potentially wet, so Sam and I headed off early.

The ride to Majola Pass and into Italy was hardly noticeable from the Swiss side. It soon plunged steeply into the Val Bregaglia and nearly 1500m to the town of Chiavenna below.

By the time we got to Chiavenna we were sodden, so took a double coffee and croissant break until the rain had passed.

Eventually it was time to tackle the famed Passo dello Spluga.

Another prehistoric and Roman trade route, the Splügen Pas has been mentioned in literary works by Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s travel narrative History of a Six Weeks’ Tour and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.

And while it separates Italy and Switzerland, it also divides the Rhine (flowing to the North Sea) and Po River (flowing to the Adriatic Sea) drainage basins.

The fun part was navigating the 50 narrow tornante (hairpins) and innumerable galleria (tunnels) along the 30km climb.

The top was not a place to hang round for long and the ride into Switzerland was equally as twisting and turning, just without any tunnels.

Just as we stopped for lunch at Splügen by the Hinterrhein (‘behind’ branch of the Rhine River), I spotted a different kind of racing vehicle – is it a car or a bike?

The remainder of the ride to Thusis was a sheer delight. Nearly all down-hill, we wound through a spectacular set of canyons, gorges and labyrinths known as the Via Mala on an almost deserted main highway. All the traffic preferred the autobahn. Fine with me.

According to Garmin.