Dwight Peck's personal website
Trento and Brescia, December 2013
A week's sightseeing in the Trentino-Alto Adige autonomous region and Brescia in Lombardy
You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
Home by the Simplon Pass
We've been four days in and around Trento and another few in Brescia, and it's time to pack the Squirrel back into her cute pink kitty-cage and drive back over the Simplon Pass, 8 December 2013.
We're leaving the distinctly non-historic part of Brescia on the Autostrada A4 (the "Serenissima") towards Milan. A blissful drive on a Sunday morning -- no bumper-to-bumper long-haul trucks looming up all around us.
Passing Bergamo, obviously (there are more impressive parts of Bergamo, to be sure), then passing north of Milan and turning up towards Lago Maggiore into the Alps.
Iselle di Trasquera, where the Simplon car-train comes out on the Italian side
Last gas in Italy
We have Napoleon to thank for engineering the old track over the pass for vehicle traffic in 1801-05 (in his case, artillery), but it wasn't until around 1970 that the Swiss authorities had put enough avalanche barriers and galleries in to keep the road open through the winter.
Approaching the Simplon Pass from the Italian side (but already in Switzerland)
The Hotel Monte Leone on the Simplon Pass at 2005m altitude
The Simplon Hospiz on the right (owned by the "Congregation of Canons Regular at Grand-Saint-Bernard"), with the Hotel-am-Adler (or Simplon-Blick) in the distance
Down the other side towards Brig, the Ganter Bridge, completed in 1980, 678m long in an S-curve over the gorge
And finally, the Rhône valley at Brig, heading west and home.
        
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