Day 195: Convent & Rhaetian Railway

Lots of driving and two UNESCO sites today! Up and out quite early, driving about an hour north to our first stop, the Benedictine Convent of St John in Munster. Quite a wordy name! This is an old monastery (later a convent, hence the name), where monks did a lot of influential writing and painting. The frescoes here in the church date to the 900s, and are exceptionally well-preserved.

Since we arrived fairly early, hardly anyone was around which was quite nice, so we managed to get our filming done quickly. There's a couple of other things to see here in the museum, but it was 12 francs each and we decided not to bother.

Back to the car where we drove back exactly the way we'd come! Through our hotel town, then back over the epic mountain pass from yesterday, great views the whole way. Our destination now was the Rhaetian Railway, set up in the late 19th century to better connect the remote areas of Switzerland with the rest of the country, and of course with Italy as well.

There are two branches to the railway; combined they are about 125km long, have over 200 bridges and viaducts, and over 50 tunnels and covered galleries! There's some fantastic sections as well, like watching a train disappear into a tunnel, only to reappear a few moments later much higher up the mountain, crossing a viaduct to the other side of the valley!

There were some genuine spots where it looked like the old railway sets I used to play with as a kid, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover those sets were based on this railway - at least in part! We stopped at one spectacular viaduct, waiting a while as a few trains went back and forth. There were some nearby tunnels too, and of course a gushing glacial river. Very picturesque place.

We filmed what we needed, checked out a couple of nearby train stations, then decided we'd drive back over the epic mountain pass for a third time to our hotel valley, then head south briefly to St Moritz. It's a famous ski town, frequented by the rich and famous. We didn't spot anyone rich or famous, in fact the town didn't seem all that nice or even particularly wealthy.

But what we did find by complete accident was the remnants of a Ferrari exhibition that some workmen were packing up. A whole bunch of beautiful Ferraris getting loaded into trucks, including a few F1 cars from the 1980s, a Ferrari F40 (they bravely left the keys in and the engine running while getting it on the truck!!), a few Ferrari touring cars, and best of all - a 1968 Ferrari P5 concept car. As far as I can tell, it's the only one ever produced!

Took a bunch of photos and nerded out a bit, then decided we'd head back to Zuoz after a long day of driving, exploring and filming. Watched Game of Thrones and had supermarket pre-packed salads for dinner before an early bed-time. Lots more driving to come tomorrow!Read more