Today we travel from Zermatt to St Moritz. Both of these areas are quite noteworthy-Zermatt being at the foot of the iconic Matterhorn, St Moritz being a winter playground for both the rich and the accomplished, having hosted the Winter Olympics twice and the perennial home on numerous championship ski events. And we are making the trip on the Glacier Express.

Others state it better. “The Glacier Express (GEX) is a direct train connecting railway stations of the two major mountain resorts of Zermatt and St. Moritz via Andermatt in the central Swiss Alps. The train is not an "express" in the sense of being a high-speed train, but rather, in the sense that it provides a one-seat ride for an 8-hours-long end-to-end 291 km (181 mi) journey, and omits stops made by local trains. The Glacier Express is known as the slowest express train in the world. As St. Moritz and Zermatt are home to two well-known mountains, the Glacier Express is also said to travel from Matterhorn to Piz Bernina.

Glacier Express

The Glacier Express traversing the Landwasser Viaduct just before arriving in Filisur.”

The route transverses the Alps in one incredible engineering feat, climbing steep inclines, crossing wide and deep gorges, twisting and turning its way over, around, and through the mountainous terrain. Some tunnels go through the mountain, other tunnels spiral down the inside of the mountain, coming out the other side giving us a new and spectacular view of the Alps

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When we finally arrived in St Moritz, we had to scramble for our rain gear. St Moritz is a well established ski resort long cherished by the money class of Europe as their winter playground. Guess that explains why all the Prada, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton stores and why all the taxis were Mercedes and the police drive BMWs. The fact that it has been home to the Winter Olympics twice and is the perennial site of numerous ski championship events speaks highly of its pedigree as the place to test you skill on the slopes.

There is a combination of 3 trams/gondolas you need to take to get the the highest parts of the ski area.

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At one point we passed the sight of the men’s downhill championship, I thought it was the photographers stand-soon I realized in was the starting gate

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After getting down from the mountain we went about exploring the town, but the main topic was about the next leg of our journey to Lugano, in the Italian part of Switzerland that included a stop in Tirano, which was actually in Italy. The changing Covid rules was going to make this interesting. After checking out the latest rules and regulations and looking for someplace we could be tested, we found we could visit a physician and get our US issued Covid Vaccination form converted into European speak Vaccination form. Problem solved.

After that we hit a museum that depicted everyday life in Switzerland a couple of hundred years ago. For some reason, the only picture I took was of the hunting rifles.

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