Julier · Albula · Flüela Graubünden Triangle · part 3

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Davos food and weather check

   Davos sits at about 1,560 metres in a long, high valley in eastern Graubünden, and it claims to be the highest city in Europe, which depends on how you count. It has about eleven thousand people and has been a health resort since the nineteenth century, when the dry mountain air was prescribed for tuberculosis, and a sanatorium culture grew up here. Thomas Mann, who visited his wife during her treatment in 1912, based his novel The Magic Mountain on the experience, and the expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner moved to the valley and spent his last years working in the hills.

   Read the complete Davos food and weather check write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Davos food and weather check is where the day begins. Reckon on about 7 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Landquart return, mostly downhill.

2. 2. Landquart return gate

   Landquart is a railway junction that turned into a town, and a good place to understand how Graubünden ties together. The village lies on the floor of the Rhine valley, a few kilometres north of Chur, at the mouth of the Landquart river, which comes down from the Prättigau and the high passes of the east. It is the point where the Rhaetian Railway, the narrow-gauge line that climbs to Davos and St. Moritz, leaves the main line, and the red trains wait at the platform beside the big Swiss ones. At 523 metres, it is low, mild and often warm, a contrast to the high Alps that lie ahead.

   Read the complete Landquart return gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Landquart return comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. You lose 1037 m on the way down to it, steadily. Next is back to Chur.

3. 3. back to Chur

   At 593 metres, in a wide bend of the Rhine valley, Chur makes a strong claim to be the oldest town in Switzerland, with traces of settlement going back thousands of years and a Roman presence from the first century BC. It has been the seat of a bishop since late antiquity, and the bishop's court, with its cathedral, sits on a terrace above the old town. Down below, the narrow streets and squares of the Altstadt, with painted houses, fountains and arcades, are a pleasant place to wander after a morning in the saddle.

   Read the complete Chur write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 60 km.