Continuing my trip in Switzerland, today's itinerary is to have a day trip to Lugano, a city near Switzerland's border with Italy. After that, we would be making our way to Zurich, the last city in our tour in West Europe region. In order to go from Lucerne to Lugano, we must pass through the Andermatt region. Little did I know that it's gonna be an amazing route.
The weather was quite bad when we left Lucerne. Thankfully, it cleared up a bit when we were passing through the beautiful Gotthard Pass. For a teaser of what's coming up on this mountain pass, we saw a beautiful white stream of river on the way up.
The Gotthard Pass (or also known as St. Gotthard Pass) is a mountain pass in the Alps, connecting northern (i.e. those area near Italy) to southern Switzerland. When your vehicle has reached higher level of height, you will be able to see the beautiful scenery of the mountain road combined wiht the river. The water is white because it directly comes from the snow which melts from the top of the Alps.
The Gothard Pass is crossed by three major traffic tunnels, the Gotthard Rail Tunnel, the Gotthard Road Tunnel, and the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The construction of Gotthard Rail Tunnel was done in the 1800s and it was not an easy feat. The construction took nearly 200 lives of the construction workers. The Gotthard Road Tunnel was opened much later in 1980. The latest tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is currently still under construction and it is planned to open next year.
Even though there are not many cars spotted, we did experience a traffic jam here in the mountain. The jam is caused by a horde of flocks. I did not really know where the cows are going to up here in the mountain. XD
Another look at the Gotthard Pass from up here. It kinda gets pretty scary when you reached certain heights of the road because there are fogs and when the fogs come down you can't really see outside. Without an experienced driver, I don't think passing through the Gotthard Pass is safe. LOL.
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