A Journey of Lows and Highs
- Richard Crooks
- Apr 5
- 4 min read
Well, we are on day six of our grand tour to Leros and I’m in bed in the guesthouse looking out at the Alps. It’s a crispy morning with a light frost and the early morning sun is illuminating the snowy caps in a “tantalising” way. Of course, to the modern traveller, one can use romantic prose to describe such obstacles, but for the medieval traveller, “menacing” might have been a better word. Fear of extreme discomfort or even death en-route was a possibility, although few pilgrims would have attempted the crossing so early in the season.
On-board meteorologist, and first mate, Alix, had been keeping an eye on the weather and all looked good for crossing at Brenner in Austria. Our 'Plan B' would have been to head south-west, through Lichtenstein and use the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland. We had no snow chains, but were not expecting snow. So, we had continued south on the Romantic Road, and had overnighted just north of Fussen.
We ate an early breakfast, of typical continental German fare including two golden “spiegelei”. We checked out, the roof came back, and we departed through low Schwabian pasturelands, punctuated by small villages, with their white church towers an onion-like domes. As we closed in on the picturesque, walled-town of Fussen, castles appeared in the background nestled within coniferous forest on the lower slopes.
We were in search of a vignette – a sticker to place on our windscreen, used as visible authorisation to use the Austrian motorway network. We didn’t find any obvious location in town to buy one, so we headed towards the border and turned into the last-chance petrol station. Sure enough, a sign advertised availability of the pass, and an elderly lady passed one over the counter for a sum of €12, gabbling to us in German how and where to apply it the glass. We pretended to understand her, and with a cheery “auf wiedersehen”, off we set.
The first part of the journey is up to and along the Fern pass. At the top there is a long tunnel at an altitude of about 3,500ft. The scenery comprises steep limestone cliffs, with conifers clinging onto the slopes. There are occasional lakes (sees) deep down below. The air was fresh and crystal clean, and we enjoyed the beautiful, winding and lightly trafficked tarmac.
After the peak, we dropped down into the Inn valley, and joined the autobahn towards Innsbruk. We turned off, southwards before the city, and headed towards Brenner, and Italy beyond. The route was dual carriageway for most of the way, but there almost as many road-works as there are tunnels, and so we were single file for a while.
The altitude of the pass at Brenner was about 4,500 ft, or 1,370m. It’s a popular crossing, because it is the lowest one, and kept free of snow throughout the winter. Hitler and Mussolini met here several times apparently.
So, the crew of Missy Bear had now passed our highest point, and our lowest point of the tour. The lowest point had, of course, been the channel tunnel at 75m below the sea bed, and 115m below sea level. At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 miles), it has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world, and is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world. The second longest is the Gotthard Base Tunnel. I’ll let you research the longest…
Now we were descending along a very broad valley, which seemed to grow wider as we progressed. The air quality gradually changed and became hazier. The temperature climbed. Mind you, even at the top of the Brenner we were experiencing double digit temperatures! Alix eventually asked to stop and put the roof up when we hit 23 degrees, as we were overdressed and cooking. The aircon was a relief. And yet snow still capped the peaks.
What a modern first-world problem. Pilgrims in medieval times had to worry about a plethora of things: theft, violence, filthy beading, bad food – especially on the onward voyages from the Venetian or Genoese ports - not to mention cold and wild animals. All we had to worry about was the standard of the coffee at the service stations, and, now, the Italian drivers. They love to accelerate up to you until they could reach out and touch your rear bumper. Perhaps they are all short-sighted and too vain to wear spectacles. And then they sit there aggressively (I suppose?) until you deign to move out of their way. And then it’s pedal to the metal for them again, until the next rear bumper appears out of the blur.
At Lake Garda we decided to leave the motorway and saunter down the eastern, lakeshore drive, It is quite delightful. It was very windy in the north, perhaps with katabatic effects. There were many windsurfers out on the choppy waters.
We bumbled along through little, waterside villages, with the odd clock tower or old castle, and the mandatory floating pontoons for the little day-sailor yachts.
The wind eased as we reached the south and our destination of Peschiera del Garda.
The outskirts of this large town looked unpromising, as most 20th century suburbs do, but the centre is delightful. It comprises a few canals off the south-east corner of the lake enclosed by old walls. A lion of St Mark appeared over one of the portals as we drove over the canal and into the old town, a reminder that Venice had taken control of the town in 1440.
The solid walls were reminiscent of French town defences, designed much later by the engineer Vauban, who adapted the 'star-shape' design, also known as the “trace Italienne”. In fact, our lodgings for the next two nights – the Pavillion, was the old military barracks.
We were now about half way there and had covered about 1,100 miles. Next stop Venice!
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