33. Milan Italy to Interlaken Switzerland 1970

Bergamo was founded as a settlement of the Celtic tribe of Cenomani about 300 BC.

Delivery Van

The next morning I decided to get back on the road.  It was an easy hitch this time.  It was by way of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo back to Milan.  I must admit that I did not stop to do any sightseeing.  I managed to hitch rides with a variety of trucks and delivery vans.  I arrived in Milan in time to get a bed in the youth hostel and met some new people and some that I had met before, everyone going in different directions and looking for hitching partners.  I managed to partner with a girl heading to Grindalwad, Switzerland, abut 10 kilometers further than Interlaken.  We stayed together as far as Interlaken.
 

Our route to Interlaken was through Como and Lugano with delivery trucks.  Remember I told you in an earlier post that when traveling with a woman, the guy usually sat in the middle seat so the woman could avoid being groped.  Well that day, on one of the rides between Como and Lugano, the girl rode in the middle seat so I could avoid being groped!

Bellinzona

After Lugano our last ride was to Bellinzona where the rides dried up.  Once in Bellinzona, the trucker dropped us off at an intersection and gassed up to continue on to Chur.  We were headed to the northwest so walked to the edge of town in the direction we were headed.  We stopped at the edge of town near another petrol/convenience store to wait for some traffic and a possible ride.  After some time we eventually got a ride with a man and his young daughter.  About three quarters up the St Gotthard Pass to Hospental we had to stop to let the small engine cool down.  While we were waiting the driver said that he was going to take his daughter to the small cafe we had just passed and would be about a half hour.

Tubing

 The girl I was traveling with and I went to the edge of the parking area and, once under some trees, we noticed a stream that had people in it who were cooling down.  There was quite a number of people, making up a few families riding inner tubes on the opposite shore.  They would walk into the water, get on the tubes and ride down through the small rapids.  There were adults standing in these rapids helping to steer the children, and more adults were further downstream to ensure the children, riding the tubes, were steered into the inlet pool of slow moving water to allow them to get out, walk back upstream, and repeat the process.  We ate a small lunch, sitting on the bank with our feet in the stream.  I wanted no repeat of what happened in Greece while skinny dipping.

Climbing to St. Gotthard Pass

After a short while, our ride was ready to continue.   We continued to climb up to about 7000 feet through the ST Gotthard Pass before dipping down to Hospental, a small linear village about two kilometers south of Andermatt.  In Hospental we turned left to tackle the Furka Pass.  This pass was closed because of snow when I went through Switzerland earlier that summer.  The Furka Pass reached an elevation of about 8000 feet.  This time the car made it all the way up and then down to Meiringen with only stops for us humans.   After that it was only fourteen more miles to the youth hostel at Interlaken.  This was my third and last visit there until 2010. 

The View From the Top of Furka Pass

This route from Milan Italy to Interlaken Switzerland takes about three and a half hours to drive on today's modern roads.  In 1970 we left Milan early in the morning and it was dusk when we got to Interlaken, about ten or eleven hours on the road.