Tuesday 30th October 2018

This morning the weather seemed a bit better in Savognin than it had been yesterday. We very unwisely, emboldened perhaps by our newly purchased snow chains, decided to make another attempt at crossing the Julierpass. All looked fine as we set out.

As we climbed higher it became clear that the weather was foul at altitude.

We had only got a little higher than our high point of yesterday when we no longer had any grip with our summer tyres and that the only way to make further progress would be to fit the snow chains, But where to stop to do the fitting? It is very very difficult to make rational decisions in this type of situation (if indeed there are any rational decisions to make).

We found a reasonably flat bit of road and pulled over to the right as far as we could. As soon as I got out of the van I realised we were in a very dangerous situation with an intense blizzard blowing and barely controlled lorries and cars in various states of distress passing us in both directions! I eventually managed to fit the right front chain. I then had the horrendous prospect of fitting the left front one with barely room for the lorries to pass me in the blizzard gloom. To make matters worse I became incredibly cold and my body was wracked by uncontrollable coughing fits. Somehow I got the left front chain fitted.

 

I got the van started but after having moved forward about 10 metres the left chain dropped off. Assuming I had fitted it incorrectly I went back into the firing line of the passing barely controlled vehicles and tried to refit it only to find that it had broken! Behind us was this Croatian registered car which was clearly in distress. I somehow managed to turn our van around and head back down to Savognin where the garage we had bought the chains from yesterday replaced them with a new pair saying that ours had clearly had a "manufacturing fault". I really feared for my life today. It was not just about the prospect of being run over by a vehicle in the gloom but by the intense wind chill and the terrible effect the cold and stress was having on  my body.

We travelled back north and then west and parked at the railway station at Thusis.

There is this nice statue on the platform. After much coming and going we managed to buy a permit to travel on Swiss motorways as we reckoned that this would be the only way to cross the main chain of the alps in the current weather conditions,

We set off south down the motorway.

We passed through numerous short tunnels.

As we got higher the blizzard conditions returned but the authorities had somehow managed to keep the motorway open.

We went through the St Bernard tunnel eventually managing to get through the main chain of the alps.

Coming out of the south side of the tunnel conditions were still tricky for a while.

Eventually we reached lower altitudes where there wasn't any snow.

We crossed from Switzerland into Italy.

We are staying tonight at the Area Camper (Aire de Camping Cars) at Como. Here's the view out of our windscreen.

Today we travelled 140 miles (225 kilometres). We are at N45.83503 E9.06061

 Como   Strret view - the aire was obviously being constructed when this was taken.