June 21st: Zernez to Santa Maria

 

We woke up to cloudy skies that were at least not dropping rain on us. We took our breakfast with rapidity and got out on the road but barely got in 3km before it started raining. We had just passed a covered bridge so immediately turned around and stopped at the bridge to wait out the rain. Arturo checked the weather radar and declared that it wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. We got pictures of a rainbow as the sun struggled to rise above the weather. 

Once the rain died down, we got back on the road again, and this time made decent time up to Ova Spin, the local maximum before the road dropped 200m to the Livigno tunnel intersection. We used the momentum from the descent to make it up the climb as much as possible, having no reason to stop. At Il Fourn, the National Park Hotel, we stopped for Arturo to take on water before the climb became steeper as it approached the Offenpass. The rain came again, but fortunately we were near a building that looked like it might be a private apartment that had a big porch we could shelter in. Arturo checked the weather radar again and declared that it too will blow over. 

Sure enough in 30 minutes the sun came out from behind the clouds and we could resume the climb. The pass gets steeper as it approaches the summit but we were up to the task and got our pass photo. I’m always unprepared for how fast and furious the descent from Ofenpass is. The road banks and turns in corner after corner in wild ribbons that look like the road had been thrown down from the heavens by an angry child. You speed along as the countryside passes you by in a blur. Any traffic coming down from behind you has to be patient as there’s no place for you to pull over. 

Then suddenly there’s a lull as the road flattens out and you feel the full force of any headwind coming up from the valley and you suddenly have to pedal with your stiff legs. Then the road rolls past a ledge and suddenly you’re in full on descent mode again. This repeats 3 times, each time with the Italian border getting closer until suddenly you’re in Santa Maria and there’s a bottlenecked road where two cars cannot possibly pass each other but somehow Swiss drivers are polite enough to stop for each other at places before the bottleneck and give priority to the post bus which miraculously does not scrape it. 

Arriving at the Hotel Alpina significantly before Arturo, I waxed the chain while waiting. When he arrived I asked if we were going to stay here or commit to climbing the Umbrail. It was just past noon, but the unsettled weather meant that talking the party into a climb up 4km to Hotel Alpenrose was a futile proposition. We walked into the Hotel Alpina and met the proprietor Vanessa. We asked about the half pension and she looked at our booking and declared that it didn’t include meals. 

“Wait a minute, we have full cancellation with no penalty? Why don’t we cancel and we pretend that we just showed up and you give us the half pension?” Vanessa looked at us in disbelief. “If I cancel, I have to pay a penalty.” “But we can cancel without penalty!” She said, “Do it!” “Arturo, you sure you want to stay here and not ride up to Hotel Alpenrose?” Vanessa interjected, “That’s my mom’s hotel!” We laughed and I pushed the cancel button on my phone. When it cleared Vanessa’s hotel management system she immediately booked us into a triple room at a half pension at a great price.

 

We checked in, got out of our wet clothes and took showers. We then did laundry while Arturo looked up what to do in town. It turned out that the recommended hikes to a waterfall would take far too long and take us out of public transit range, a bad idea in unsettled weather. We opted for a much more straightforward if potentially more boring walk to the town of Mustair where there was a famous church. 

The walk was not the most exciting in the world, paralleling the main road, but the slow pace was actually not bad for showing us local farms with goats, lambs, and even a curious cat. Every so often we’d feel a rain drop or see a rain cloud dumping on a hillside or faraway town. What took getting used to was the constant sound of gunfire. Arturo explained that every Swiss male had to serve in the military, and after the mandatory service once a year they still had to take a shooting test. The consequence of failing the shooting test is more time spent taking a refresher class on shooting, so the folks who were supposed to be tested soon were now in a practice frenzy. Being from the US hiking while listening to gunfire is pretty normal, but this was the first time I’d experienced it in Europe. Upon getting to town we’d just missed a bus so that made the church visit mandatory. 

The church museum was OK, but nothing special to my eyes though there was a surprising crowd in the museum and store! By the time we were done it was too late to hike back up to the central bus stop with its neighboring cafes. Besides, rain was starting so we just waited for the bus at the church and took it back to Santa Maria where we walked to the supermarket for ice cream and a drink I’d never seen before and so felt compelled to try. To justify our stay in Santa Maria right after I finished the drink and got back the bottle deposit from the supermarket it started raining and we made it back to the hotel just in time to watch the heavens open up! 

Dinner was passable if not terribly exciting, and after dinner the rain let up enough for us to walk around some more around town. But by the time we were done we felt we’d explored the limits of what Santa Maria had to offer. A look at the forecast showed that while Sunday was a lost cause everywhere the weather would turn for the better after that meaning a visit to Bormio would be in order. 

We booked a 3 night stay at an apartment in Bormio and made plans to be there. So Sunday would be a rest day but after the efforts of the past few days we all could use a rest.