June 23, 2012 Lake Como to Stelvio Pass Italy

Sorry didn't get this away yesterday as we had no Wi-fi as we were high up in the mountains.

Yesterday morning left Lake Como after relaxing for two days in very hot, humid weather.

Drove north out of the top end of Lake Como up through some lovely country side. Mountains covered in fur type trees looked very Canadian and very stoney. We went through a little rain for awhile, but fortunately didn't last for long.

We were climbing up through mountains and passes the above called Malojapass was as you can see a lot of fun and a challenge. We were amongst many rugged snow capped mountains. At this point we had climbed 3900 feet, climbed up over other passes to 5950ft. Beautiful scenery.

This was a beautiful lake that we passed before we reached St Moritz. Great reflections.

Took this photo across the lake from St Moritz. We saw a floating nest in the lake which was full of baby birds. Mother duck was bringing in the food while father was fluffy around restoring the nest. Great to watch.

We stayed here in 2004 on our way to David and Evkas wedding and we missed out on this photo then as it was pouring with rain. 

After St Moritz we climbed over the Bernina Pass. Very nice and this shot shows a nearby glacier adjacent to the top of the road. Beautiful. The top of the pass was 6829 feet and 14 degs  

More shots on the Bernina Pass.

Nice to have the cooler weather after all the heat and humidity that we had been having earlier. We were high enough to be higher than the ice pockets on the sides of the mountains.

Then drove onto Livigno where we took a wrong turning for 7kms before PT realised ,but saw a nice long dammed lake. Did U turn and continued back to Livigno now heading for the Stelvio Pass. The big one that we were looking forward to all day.

More of the dammed lake.

This is a great shot looking back down the Stelvio Pass which we had just driven up. Amazing, what a challenge.

Reaching the top of Stelvio, wow what a sight, motorbikes everywhere, cyclists and cars all with the challenge of reaching the top. Cyclists everywhere here all in the enjoyment of the challenge to get to the top at 8988 feet according to our GPS. When we were heading up we were passed by cars and motorbikes travelling at seemingly breakneck speeds. They are mad drivers all thinking they were in a Grand Prix I'm sure.

Now at the top. It was only 13 degrees and at last we have cooled down. All the bikies eating drinking and looking happy. At this stage we were looking around for our hotel and realised that it was over the other side of the mountain (over the white umbrella in the middle of the picture). It was 4kms from us in a direct line but 7kms of zigging and zigging down in the valley.

This was taken from the above photo looking down where we had to go to our hotel which is the little white speck at the very end of the valley floor before the dark shaded mountains.

And here she is, Berghotel Franzenshohe.  Our room is the top left hand window looking straight over the mountains.

The view from our window.

Just somewhere in the mountains.