Corvatsch (3,303 meters or 10,836 feet)

We left our hotel this morning with clear blue sky and only a few puffy clouds and it stayed that way all day.  I think it was the best weather day we had on the entire trip!

Based on what happened yesterday, our first order of business was to get Patrick to the rental car place in St. Moritz which was just a few miles away from our hotel.  I again gave Patrick a ride on my motorcycle.  Martin, who is Patrick's friend, was going to follow Patrick back to Thun as well so we will only have 7 motorcycles for the rest of the trip.  When we left them, they were still working on getting the car but things seemed to be in order so we move on.

Our next stop, and the highlight of the day, was going to Corvatsch which is over 10,000 feet high and has the highest gondola in Switzerland.  Charlie really likes these gondolas and he had not done this one yet.  When we had checked into the hotel we stayed for the last 2 nights, they gave us a card they said provided free train rides.  Charlie learned it was also good at Corvatsch to ride the gondola.  Normally this is around $65; by using the card it was free!  With the great weather and a free ride, we had to check it out.  The views were amazing.





As we continued on our ride, we went over several other passes, one of them was Splugen.  This pass is known for its evenly spaced switchbacks.  See the photo below.


Another neat place we stopped was overlooking a very deep gorge.  The road was about half way between the top rim of the gorge and the river flowing at the bottom.  The gorge and the river at the bottom was so narrow you could not even see the water flowing in some places.  There is still a bridge there that was built in 1739.  No driving is allowed on the bridge but you can walk across it.  Prior to the bridge being built, people walked along a narrow ledge on the gorge wall.  Today they have some silhouettes showing where people walked (see the last photo).





Tonight we are staying in a town named Andermatt.  We are only here 1 night.  I did a quick walk around our hotel area when I arrived; there are some neat old buildings in this area.  The first photo is of our hotel.





Tomorrow is the last day of our riding tour.  Charlie indicated we will probably do 3 more passes in the morning.  We need to leave the area by about 1:30 so we get back to Thun (where we started) around 4:00.  We will drop our belongings at the hotel and then return the bikes to the shop.  After all the paperwork is done, they will give us a ride back to the hotel and we will have our final meal together.




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