Bernina Pass Road (95 km)

St Moritz to Tirano

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Why this ride

95 km one way from St. Moritz - plan on about 1 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes Pontresina, Bernina Pass and Poschiavo. The highest point is about 2,500 m. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.

Roadbook

1. St Moritz start

   St. Moritz is not subtle, and the world's most famous winter resort does not intend to be. It sits at about 1,800 metres in the Upper Engadine, on a sunlit shelf above a lake, with ranges of white peaks on every side and a record of sunny days that the tourist board advertises with some pride. Its mineral springs were known in the Bronze Age, and in the Middle Ages pilgrims came to drink the water. Winter tourism, legend says, started in 1864 when the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet English summer guests that they would enjoy the Alps in the snow. The town has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, and the Cresta Run, an ice toboggan track, still runs every winter.

   Today the centre is hotels, designer shops and some very expensive cars, which makes a dusty motorcycle feel agreeably subversive. It is still worth a stop. Walk the lakeshore, look back at the town from the lower end, and notice how the light makes everything seem sharp and bright. The valley beyond is gentler than many Swiss valleys, with a chain of lakes along the floor from Maloja to Celerina.

   For riders, St. Moritz is a star hub for passes. The Julier Pass heads northeast to the Albula valley, and the Bernina road climbs south to a pass of around 2,300 metres before dropping to Italy at Tirano, with the Rhaetian Railway beside it for much of the way. West, the Maloja road descends to Chiavenna through a dramatic series of hairpins. All are well surfaced and have good views, but weather in the high Alps changes fast. Summer is the easy season, and snow can close passes at any time from October through spring.

   Fuel is available in the town and nearby villages, though prices are among the highest in the country. Cafés in the centre serve the local Engadiner nusstorte, a rich pastry filled with caramel and walnuts, which is a good reason to stop. Leave time for a short walk beside the lake in the evening.

2. Pontresina scenic

   Pontresina sits at the mouth of two glacial valleys on the Upper Engadin, and the village has been a mountaineers' base since the nineteenth century. The first ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest peak in the eastern Alps at 4,049 metres, was made in 1850 by a Graubünden surveyor, Johann Coaz, and the village grew rich guiding foreigners up the neighbouring summits. Old photographs of men in woollen coats and hobnailed boots, roped together on a glacier, still hang in the cafes.

   The setting is the thing. A small, tidy village of old stone houses and newer hotels lies on a terrace in the sun, in a broad valley of larch and pine, and behind it the Roseg and Morteratsch valleys lead toward the glaciers. A flat road follows the Roseg valley to a restaurant at its head, and in summer horse-drawn carriages carry visitors along it. The Morteratsch glacier, a tongue of ice that has been shrinking for a century, can be reached by a short walk from the railway station, with markers along the path showing where the front stood in earlier years, a sobering sequence.

   Pontresina is the foot of the Bernina Pass road, one of the most scenic routes in the Alps, and for riders it is the natural start of the climb. The road leaves the village and rises in broad bends through larch forest, with views back over the valley, before reaching the high lake country, where the Bernina railway runs beside the road for much of the way. The surface is smooth, the bends are open, and traffic is moderate, though it can be heavy in summer. In winter the pass is kept open and the road is a popular route to Italy.

   The village is also known for its sun. The Engadin has a dry and bright climate, and Pontresina has a reputation for blue skies, even when other parts of Switzerland are in cloud. The air at this altitude, about 1,800 metres, is thin and clear, and temperatures drop rapidly at night. The Romansh language is spoken here as well as German, and the names on the old houses reflect a long history of bilingual living.

   There are plenty of cafes and restaurants in the village, and the local speciality is Bündner Gerstensuppe, a thick barley soup, followed if you can manage it by a slice of Nusstorte. Fuel is not as easy as in a larger town, so check the tank, and consider Samedan, a short ride away, or St Moritz, which has more stations. Parking for motorcycles is available near the station and the old village.

3. Bernina Pass scenic · 2330 m

   The Bernina Pass is the stark one. At 2,330 metres, it has no forest, no village to speak of, and almost no vegetation to soften the view: just two small lakes, a scatter of buildings at the Ospizio, a railway line, and mountains that look like they were left half-finished. It is also a true divide. Water from one side of the summit lake eventually reaches the Inn and the Danube, and then the Black Sea, while water from the other side flows south to the Po and the Adriatic. Lago Bianco, the milky-green reservoir on the summit, drains toward Italy, and Lago Nero, a little further north, toward the Inn.

   The road climbs from the Engadin side near Pontresina in easy, open curves, then drops south toward Poschiavo in a long run of switchbacks and tight bends, with the climate changing noticeably as it descends from alpine tundra to chestnut and vines near Tirano. The surface is good and the corners are well signed, but the pass is exposed to cold, wind and fog, even in summer, so a layer under your jacket is wise. Snow can arrive early and linger, and while the road is kept open for much of the year, check conditions in winter and spring.

   Next to the road runs the Bernina railway, whose red trains carry the Bernina Express from Chur to Tirano. It is the highest adhesion railway in the Alps, meaning it climbs without cogs, and it was listed by UNESCO with its companion Albula line in 2008. You may find yourself riding beside a train for miles, a good game to play. Above the pass, Piz Palü and the Bernina massif carry glaciers that have shrunk visibly in recent decades. The Diavolezza cable car, just north of the pass, climbs to a ridge with a close view of the ice.

   Poschiavo, about ten kilometres south, has a pump, and Pontresina to the north has more, while Tirano across the Italian border is the nearest town of any size. The Ospizio has a place for a coffee, a hot soup or a slice of nut cake, which is the proper reward for the climb. Ride early in the day to avoid the traffic, and expect to find the light flat and clear and the air thin and cold.

4. Poschiavo scenic

   Poschiavo is the Italian-speaking surprise on the far side of the Bernina. After the cold, bare grandeur of the pass, you drop through a series of hairpins and arrive in a warm, green valley where the language changes, the houses change and the food changes, even though you are still in Switzerland. The valley, the Valposchiavo, belongs to canton Graubünden, but its people speak a Lombard dialect and its old town looks like a village in Piedmont or Lombardy.

   The old centre is a pleasure, a little maze of narrow streets, arcades and small squares around a handsome Catholic church with a tall bell tower. Next to it stands the Protestant church, and the two faiths have lived side by side for centuries, a rare example of peaceful coexistence in a region that had its religious wars. The most striking part of the town is the Spaniola quarter, a group of palazzi built in the nineteenth century by local people who had made their fortunes as confectioners and cafe owners in Spain and returned home to build grand houses with elaborate facades.

   The Bernina railway runs through the valley, and the town is a stop on the Bernina Express, which crosses the Alps between Chur and Tirano. A short distance down the valley, at Brusio, the railway makes a complete circle on a stone viaduct to lose height, an engineering feat that is a favourite of photographers. The road keeps close company with the railway, and the ride from Poschiavo to Tirano and the Italian border is delightful, with terraced slopes and warm light.

   The ride from the pass to Poschiavo is spectacular, with a descent of hairpins that drop over a thousand metres, and then a gentler run through the valley. The surface is excellent in general, but there are patches of rough tarmac, and the road is busy with buses and cars in summer. The temperature rises as you descend, and it is a good place to take off a layer. In autumn, the chestnut woods turn bronze and the smell of woodsmoke hangs over the villages.

   The valley has also gained a reputation for organic farming and local food, and the cafes serve excellent coffee and homemade pastries. Try pizzoccheri, the buckwheat pasta cooked with cabbage, potato and melted cheese, which is the dish of the region, and a glass of local wine from the Valtellina across the border. Poschiavo has fuel stations and shops, and Tirano, about fifteen kilometres to the south in Italy, is the larger town if you need more. Bring your passport if you plan to cross the border.

5. Tirano finish

   Tirano is where the Alps run out of snow and start thinking about wine. The town of about eight thousand sits in the Valtellina, the long east-west valley of the Adda, in Lombardy, at the foot of the Bernina Pass, and its mood is distinctly Italian: arcaded streets, warm stone, an espresso at every corner. It is the southern terminus of the Bernina Express, the railway that climbs over the pass from Switzerland, and the station square has red Swiss trains next to Italian ones, a peculiar and pleasing sight.

   The town's great monument is the Basilica of the Madonna di Tirano, a Renaissance pilgrimage church built in the early sixteenth century on the spot where the Virgin is said to have appeared in 1504. It is a handsome, spacious building with a great façade, standing at the edge of the town, with a tall bell tower and a square that is almost always full of people. The Valtellina is also a wine country, with steep terraces of Nebbiolo vines, here called Chiavennasca, walled with dry stone and facing south, and the reds that come from them are some of the best in Lombardy. Order a glass with bresaola, the air-dried beef the valley is known for, and a plate of local cheese.

   The Bernina Pass road climbs from Tirano on the Italian side in a series of hairpins through the border village of Campocologno, then past the Brusio spiral viaduct, where the railway makes a full circle, and over the pass at about 2,330 metres. The road is wide, smooth and well engineered, with fine views of the Palü glacier and the Bernina range. Switzerland's border posts are manned, so carry your passport or ID.

   Fuel, supermarkets and repair shops are all easy in Tirano, and fuel is usually cheaper here than in Switzerland, so use it. Summer can be hot and humid in the valley, while the top of the pass is cold and sometimes foggy. The pass is generally open through the year, though snow can interrupt it in winter. As a place to end a day, Tirano is warm, generous and easy, and a long table outside a trattoria is the right finish.

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