Crossing the Swiss Alps

in a thirty-three-year-old van

By Where's Herr Gruber?

September 23^rd, 2020

So, last time you heard from us we were enjoying the South German sun at Bodensee. We still have a year to go, so we decided to pack up our camp and try to make a go at the Swiss Alps. Aim in two days: Merano in Sud Tirol, Italy. We just entered that in Google Maps, option avoid toll roads (because €€€), decided we would just see how far we got that day and off we went…

Entering Switzerland

From Wallhausen we drove to Konstanz to cross the border into Switzerland. Immediately the scenery changed into rolling green hills full with grazing cows, lined by tiny villages with cute houses. We got some Swiss franc from the ATM and continued driving in the direction of Davos. Some decent climbing, temperature of the motor was doing good, so Herr Gruber was good. Last summer we did Slovenia’s highest pass, the Vrsic Pass, with ease. Then we did a off-road cross with Herr Gruber in Germany in April and basically he could handle anything, so we knew we would be ok.

Or so we thought...

After crossing Davos, Google send us to the start of the Flüelapass, altitude: 2400m above sea level. For most of the year it’s closed because of snow, even until May. Before telling you what happens next, you should know a couple of things… The thing you should know about water and heights is that the higher you get, the faster water boils. Then the next thing you should know is that a motor uses cooling water to cool it down. And you can imagine a motor gets pretty hot when its climbing some bad ass pass through the Alps.

So here we are, crossing this beautiful pass, passing this pretty church, enjoying the idyllic views. Checking the temperature of the motor, result: fine.

Then Emy starts smelling smoke.

Simon: no it’s fine it’s probably the car in front of us because our motor is not overheated…

Emy: Okay. Oh, nice view, can we stop here for some pictures?

Simon: Sure.

We stop, get out, smoke seems to come out of nowhere, we open the hood, ok found out where the smoke is coming from. Emy jumps out, gets the fire extinguisher, because we are not about to lose the only house we have. Simon yells: noooo all good, cooling water is just boiling over and getting out. Even though the motor was not really hot, the cooling water just boiled faster because we were so high. Good thing our old Toyota has a little tube to allow this to get out and Emy now knows what the relation between temperature, volume and pressure according to the law of an ideal gas is. Simon made me write this…

We let it all cool down, fill up the cooling water and start driving 20 km/h max towards to top. Still a bit shook of course… But it’s beautiful, Herr Gruber is healthy and we just survived our first adventure.

Reaching the top

The moment we reach the top, we see a beautiful lake, we let Herr Gruber cool and enjoy the views. From there its easy-peasy down hill and we end up in the beautiful village of Zernez (1400m) where we spend the night.

Getting out of the Alps

The next day we have two options:

pass the Ofenpass: 2149m, towards Merano and Sud Tirol.
pass the Majolapass: 1815m, towards Lake Como and via St. Moritz

Not wanted to ask too much from Herr Gruber for two days in a row, we opt for the second one. The weather is not gonna be good in Sud Tirol anyway…

What follows is a gorgeous descent, passing several lakes and finally ending up in Italy. Where we find a really beautiful spot to spend the night. More about that later!