Bergell or Valle Bregaglia, Switzerland June 2001 with Philippe                           ( catalogue )    ( back )

The Valle Bregaglia in Southern Switzerland is a fine East West Valley, just South of the continental divide. It belongs to the canton of Graubünden. Though most people there speak the old raetoromanic language, in Valle Bregaglia Italian is spoken.
Nowadays it is connected by road towards the East across Maloja Pass to St. Moritz.  Historically it was connected to a tributary of the Rhine River across the Septimer Pass . This pass was already used by the Romans to cross the Alps and stayed a popular route for almost 2000 years. Nowadays you can still see paved parts mainly on the Southern side....
 Around Soglio there is the oldest chest nut forest of all Europe. In summer, but also autumn it's a great place to go...

for more information go to http://www.bergell.ch/
for a map click here

just 5 km North of Bivio lies the Alp Flix on an altitude of 2000m above the village of Sur. This "meadow" is well know for its biodiversity and we made a hike to explore it. Philippe and I finally split in Zurich from where he went to Geneva.....

 

 

our cold start in Bivio  towards
Septimer Pass

 300m altitude meters below the pass the fog became so strong that we really doubted that we could make it across Philippe is getting his camera on the Septimer Pass, the sign post in the background was a bit packed in snow the wind on Septimer made this ice crystals to grow horizontal a view to the South just some meters down from the pass, definetly less snow

getting down the Septimer on the sunny South side

 some remains of the former pavement that made it possible for charts to cross the pass a view across the forests to the mountains of the valley's North side a view down to Casaccia, our first stop in Valle Bregaglia a meadow with so many different flowers just next to Casaccia
           

the area around Soglio

            
the first view towards Soglio, the "capital" of Valle Bregaglia getting closer through the leaves a view to the North side mountains lots of small sheds in the chest nut forest another view a waterfall that had to be crossed through a tummel behind the falling water lush green in summer a view to the Italy owned end of Valle Bregaglia
getting closer to Castasegna the forest gets more open a view across the valley a view towards Castasegna the village of Bondo below Solgio within the church of San Martino frescoes of the 16th century a detail the church of Nossa Donna in Castelmur

we went back to Casaccia by bus and went across the Septimer again, this time in sunshine
Philippe placed his bag on the trail while trying to get a better shot of the old bridge the bridge on Septimer South Side a South bound view, this time in sun light, from the Septimer Pass flowers surprisingly the marmots were not to shy we stayed nearly an hour to take lots of shots, though disappearing from time to time it came up again and again the North side of Septimer is more flat and so we have real rivers there

our trip to the Alp Flix

            
flowers on Alp Flix flowers on Alp Flix beautiful scenery on Alp Flix flowers on a rock on Alp Flix there are some lakes on Alp Flix another view of that lake flowers with in the lake flowers on Alp Flix
curious cows curious cows a small stream another lake large meados with lots of dirrerent flowers on Alp Flix flowers on Alp Flix flowers on Alp Flix flowers on Alp Flix with snow capped mountains in the back