The Magic Bus

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My regular phone won't connect to the interweb and my backup phone won't compress photos to a size that the blog accepts so no photos.  Bugger.

Once we got dried out we had a good evening in Livigno with too much food and another early night.  Today we set out for our last day of big hills in the Alps.  The first of these promised to be  short but brutal sod but, joy of joys, it turns out that the road actually goes UNDER the hill in a small single lane tunnel.  Cycling is verboten so we had to ride in the cycle shuttle bus.  2 miles and 500 metres of vertical climb averted.  Happy days.

This still left the second, 1000 metre, climb which took a fair bit of doing but eventually we reached the top.  An emotional moment as it was the highest pass at 2383 metres, and the last one.  In mileage our trip is half done but we have done ALL the hills.  It was cold at the top so it was winter drawers on ready for a 1400 metre plunge down the other side.  Quite apart from the satisfaction of conquering the alps I had the added pleasure of having a Kraut in a Merc pull over to let me pass as he was holding me up.  48.3 in case you are interested.

We are both completely shattered and the legs having nothing left to give but it is downhill all the way from here so we made it......just!

We passed through Davos (site of a recent world leader summit) and Klosters (poncey ski resort) and are now in Saas where, joy of of joys, we are reunited with Knobby.  He is now a seasoned European traveller and has grown dreadlocks and got a sort of spandau ballet neckerchief but we are glad to have him back on our little adventure.

Tomorrow we finish our run out of the alps and join the Rhine.

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