We left our apartment at the lake early, before the July heat had fully settled in. The route north takes you through the Italian side of the Alps before the border crossing into Switzerland, and it is not a subtle transition. The road climbs. The valleys narrow. The scale of things around you changes completely from what you have been living in for the last few days.
The Drive Itself
We had debated between two route options: the faster motorway through the tunnels, which most people take, or the mountain pass road that goes over the top and takes significantly longer. Jen had researched both and flagged the mountain pass as worth it if we had the time and the nerves.
We had neither in sufficient quantity, but we took it anyway. The road has switchbacks that make you feel like the car might simply run out of road. The guardrails inspire a specific kind of philosophical acceptance. The views, from the occasional pullout where you could stand and look back at where you came from and forward to where you were going, were the best we saw on the entire trip.
The kids were terrified of the heights. Then they were fascinated. Then they were hanging out the windows demanding more photos. That is the arc of most things on a trip like this.
The Mistake
I will be efficient about this: I took a wrong turn approximately forty minutes into the mountain pass section, which added about an hour to our route and took us through a village so small it did not seem to have a name on the map. The village was lovely. The hour was not in the schedule. I am choosing to describe this as an unplanned detour, which is a travel agent framing that Jen applied very charitably under the circumstances.
The unplanned detour led us to a family-run restaurant with a terrace overlooking a valley, where we stopped for lunch because nobody had eaten and everyone was getting the specific kind of irritable that happens in cars with teenagers on day four of a four-week trip. The food was extraordinary. The view was better than anything we had planned to see that day. The mistake was arguably the best decision of the week.
Crossing Into Switzerland
The Swiss border is a formality these days, but crossing it still feels like something. The signs change. The precision of everything around you noticeably increases. The roads smooth out. The infrastructure announces, quietly but clearly, that you are somewhere that takes certain things seriously.
We crossed into Switzerland in the late afternoon, with the Alps doing exactly what Alps are supposed to do in the low summer light. We had a guesthouse booked in the valley below Engelberg. Tomorrow we were going up.
The wrong road, taken long enough, has a way of becoming exactly the right one.
Practical Notes
- Take the scenic route. The extra time is worth every minute, if you build in buffer for exactly the kind of detours described above.
- Check pass conditions. Alpine passes can close in bad weather even in summer. Check the morning of departure.
- Carry Swiss francs and euros. The border region accepts both, but not all places take cards.
- Build in a meal stop. The valley restaurants on the Italian side of the Alps are consistently excellent and consistently uncrowded.
Where We Went
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