Alright Imagine Dragons, I'll have the mountains (Italy 2025 part 8)

Today's title reference song (note that where that video was filmed no longer exists thanks to the Palisades Fire, which also destroyed a whole bunch of retail stuff that I now wish I had visited when I was there in 2023; at least the cool Marina Vons on the beach made it, barely)

On the last little stretch into Chur, my train made up a few minutes, but we still arrived two minutes late, leaving me two minutes to make it across the station. That would be plenty of time at any other RhB station, but Chur is a much larger station, being the connection point to the mainline Swiss railway network... and while most RhB trains stop at platforms 10-14, the line to Arosa runs on the street, stopping at platforms 1 and 2 out front of the station, by the bus stops. I full-out ran from whatever platform we arrived on (I didn't even notice which one it was) to platform 2, where I was able to hop on with less than a minute to spare. 

I was quite happy to see that this was a mixed train with a variety of older cars (with windows that open) in addition to the modern EMU. I was worried this was going to be another boring trip. 

I ended up settling down in the bear car, a promotion for Arosa Bärenland (a bear zoo which I'm pretty sure isn't actually open in the winter). In addition to the graphics and children's books, the train also played bear growling sound effects at seemingly random places (maybe they're supposed to be related to the points on the table maps, but I didn't notice anything special). That definitely startled me the first time it happened!

The street-running section continues for quite a while, and is single-tracked for most of its length, meaning the train actually comes at cars head-on in some spots (mostly on the way back to Chur). Kinda crazy, if you ask me! 

Eventually, the line does break away from the road and start climbing (surprisingly quickly) into the mountains.

The route follows the side of the Plessur River valley, and quickly starts to look like a proper mountain railway again with tunnels and viaducts, including this Landwasser Viaduct-like scene (featuring what appears to be a brand-new bridge). 

I wasn't sure I was even going to bother with this route, but it turned out to be pretty spectacular! 

Most Swiss railway stations are pretty boring, but there are a few cool ones out there.

 

 

The bike car on the back of this train was a weird little thing. It has its own pantograph, so I guess it's some sort of self-propelled railcar thing, but I can't find it on the German Wikipedia's fleet list for the RhB. 

The focal point of the Arosa line is the Langwieser Viaduct, apparently the first reinforced concrete railway bridge anywhere in the world. It looks so much more modern than its 1914 build date! As a massive infrastructure geek, I absolutely loved seeing this. 

The view down from the bridge is quite impressive too. I love these old trains with opening windows -- you wouldn't be able to get this view at all from a normal modern train! 

The viaduct is also the point where it starts to become really snowy, and at the second-to-last station (Litziruti, where we passed a downhill train with cargo containers), a lot of people got on who had seemingly gone skiing from Arosa and were now taking the train back up. (One of them yelled at me for having the window open, which I don't understand -- if you don't want the windows open around you, ride in the modern EMU or cab car, which make up 2/3 of the train and have non-opening windows!)

The last bit up to Arosa has the most switchbacks of anywhere on this line, and some rather spectacular views (that half-frozen lake was absolutely beautiful), so I stood my ground and kept the window open. 

When I got to Arosa, I was a bit rushed since I was going to go up the cable car to the top of the Weisshorn, but I would have really liked to be back down in about 45 minutes to take this same train back. That didn't end up happening, but that still meant I only got this one picture of the special bear-themed livery on the car I had been riding.

 

The cable car station, and even the cable car itself, was all bear-themed too! I guess Arosa really likes bears.  By the way, I spent nearly $40 USD on this cable car ride -- definitely a bit overpriced, but that's what I get for going to Switzerland.

And for the second time in one day, I got to share my ride up the mountain with a bunch of food and beverages. 

It's a two-part ride up to the Weisshorn, with the middle station being home to Arosa Barenland and various other facilities. It was a fairly crowded ride up the first section, with me being pretty much the only one on the tram who didn't have skis or a snowboard, and I was feeling rather underdressed in my normal clothing with a down coat as my only winter garment. 

I had considered also going up the Bruggerhorn chair lift, but decided against it since it was about another $30, and it doesn't really lead to anywhere but some ski slopes so I thought it might be weird to go that way without skiing. I was glad I didn't spend the extra money since I was able to tell that it didn't have any extra views, plus I noticed that it stopped several times, sometimes for a few minutes at a time, and that would have absolutely freaked me out if it happened while I was riding. 

The second cable car was even more crowded, and this time I'm pretty sure I was the only person without ski gear (on the first part, there was a lady in a wheelchair and a person who was with her, but they didn't get on this cable car). I wasn't even able to stand right up against a window, so my pictures didn't turn out all that great. 

My original plan was to just take the cable car up and then take it right back down again, in hopes of catching the last train into Tirano of the night (which would have required me to get back on the same train I had taken to Arosa). I had thought the best part of this was going to be the cable car ride itself, but as soon as I got to the top and saw the views, I had to throw that plan out the window (especially since it didn't look like it was going to work out anyway, since it was less than 20 minutes until the train left and it had taken me much longer than that to get up here).

If I'm not mistaken, that's Chur down at the end of the valley, so the train runs along this canyon somewhere! I'm pretty sure the obvious lines along the hillside are roads, but maybe one of them is the train line. 

Yep, they really do like their bears in Arosa! 

The restaurant building at the top of the cable car is pretty impressive too. But I had neither the time nor the money (the lunch specials board was advertising meals for well over $30... for lunch) to eat at the restaurant. 

I ended up spending around 45 minutes wandering around the top of the Weisshorn, taking in the views, watching the cable cars come and go, and trying not to bother the skiers too much. And this was on a partly cloudy day -- I'm sure it would have been even more impressive if it was clear and sunny! 

You can see the top of the Bruggerhorn lift towards the middle of the picture, at the top of the smaller hill. Seeing this confirmed that the views from down there would be pretty much the same as up here, just somewhat less spectacular and without full 360 degree visibility. 

 

If I really wanted to ski, I guess I could have just "borrowed" one of the many pairs of skis that were sitting unattended and unsecured in the restaurant building. Luckily for their owners, I have absolutely no idea how to ski any more (it's been probably 15-20 years since I last did, and I was pretty bad at it even back then)! I guess ski theft isn't a major concern, considering how much (presumably quite expensive) equipment was sitting around here.

 

 

Eventually, it was time to head down. Thankfully, the way down was pretty much empty, since everyone was skiing down -- there was just one other passenger in here with me. There was music playing in the cable cars, and I was amused to see that it was coming from a generic Pioneer aftermarket car stereo! 

The lack of other passengers meant that I was able to get much better views on the way down. The upper cable car is pretty impressive on its own, getting pretty far off the ground towards the top station. 

The Bruggerhorn lift was getting pretty backed up since it had been stopped and not moving for several minutes, with passengers on the lift. I'm so glad I wasn't on it! 

The waiting area for the lower lift had this neat display of the cables used for the two cable cars. Sadly it's all written in German, but I think you can get the point. 

The lower section is less spectacular. But that's fine, I've got a train to catch, and I see it's already there waiting for me! 

At least I had a bit more time to poke around the station(s) this time. The train station is a cool modern design, and I really like how I managed to capture one of the cable cars in the last picture! 

I had spotted that there was a random extra car stuck on the back of the train, so I went straight there thinking it would be less busy. Nope -- apparently this was a dedicated tour group car, and it was absolutely packed!

So I went to the other end of the train and ended up sitting in the second-class half of the first-class car, which had a very funky 90s-looking pattern on the seats. 

By this point, it was already 3:00, and I had a 5-hour train (and bus, since I had missed the last train) trip to get back to Tirano. So I decided I was just going to relax instead of running around and taking tons of pictures on the way back. I did get this picture showing the Gründjitobel Viaduct, basically a slightly smaller version of the Langwieser Viaduct we saw earlier.

I had a slightly less tight connection at Chur this time, so I was able to get this picture showing how the Arosa train basically stops out on the street, right by all the local buses. Definitely a strange setup! This time, I had 7 whole minutes to get back across to platform 10 -- a walk in the park compared to my 2-minute connection going the other way. I probably would have even had time to grab something to eat, but the prices at the stores in the station turned me off of that. 

I had been hoping to get on one of the old cars out of Chur, since they're the only ones that have opening windows and seats, but there weren't any on this train, so it was back to the panorama car. I come all this way and I still can't escape Trump news??

 Since there were no old cars on this train, I was right up by the locomotive, which was blue for some reason. Pretty! 

By the time we got to the far side of the Albula Tunnel, it was getting quite dark and foggy. 

Sadly, the last RhB train of the trip was just an EMU without any old, open-window cars. That meant I wasn't going to see anything on this trip since it was pretty much dark out already. 

The last leg of the trip would be by bus. By this point, it was completely dark and also pouring rain -- it was turning into a miserable night, and I was glad to be almost back to my hotel (and dinner) in Tirano. The RhB has their own buses, large coaches that they use for Bernina Express shuttles, and I was expecting to see one of those, but instead we got a tiny little PostBus van. I was even more surprised that it didn't even come close to filling up -- there were probably around 5 other people on the bus with me. We also had to go through the border stations to get out of Switzerland and into Italy, but they just waved the bus through... seems like the border checks are pretty lax. 

Sorry for the delayed post today -- I just ran out of time to finish it yesterday. This was the end of the really big and exciting part of my trip, so the rest of the posts should go by a bit quicker!