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- Bernina Express train ride (Tirano ↔ St. Moritz) — The whole point of the site: a panoramic rail journey that climbs from the mild Italian foothills to high-alpine passes without rack-and-pinion help. Spectacular views change every minute — glaciers, hairpin turns, palm trees near Tirano — and the line’s continuity across the border is a rare cultural and engineering feat. (Personal favorite: the slow, scenic stretches between Alp Grüm and Ospizio Bernina.)
- Brusio Spiral Viaduct — A perfect circular stone viaduct that lets the train gain height in one elegant loop. It’s an engineering answer you don’t see every day, great for photos, and quieter than the big landmarks so you can actually soak it in.
- Landwasser Viaduct — The iconic multi-arch viaduct that seems to pour the track straight
- Bernina Express train ride (Tirano ↔ St. Moritz) — The whole point of the site: a panoramic rail journey that climbs from the mild Italian foothills to high-alpine passes without rack-and-pinion help. Spectacular views change every minute — glaciers, hairpin turns, palm trees near Tirano — and the line’s continuity across the border is a rare cultural and engineering feat. (Personal favorite: the slow, scenic stretches between Alp Grüm and Ospizio Bernina.)
- Brusio Spiral Viaduct — A perfect circular stone viaduct that lets the train gain height in one elegant loop. It’s an engineering answer you don’t see every day, great for photos, and quieter than the big landmarks so you can actually soak it in.
- Landwasser Viaduct — The iconic multi-arch viaduct that seems to pour the track straight out of a cliff into a tunnel. It’s the image everyone uses for the Rhaetian Railway for a reason: dramatic masonry sitting perfectly in a steep mountain gorge.
- Albula spiral tunnels and the Preda-Bergün section — A mind-bending sequence of tunnels, back-and-forth loops and stone retaining walls that show old-school railway cleverness. The little village of Bergün keeps the historic station and offers a compact railway museum — culture and tech in one place.
- Ospizio Bernina and the Bernina Pass plateau — High-altitude landscapes that feel brutally alpine: windswept plateaus, stony terrain, and the small hospice (Ospizio) that marks the pass. It’s a dramatic contrast to the lower valleys and a great place for short, rugged walks.
- Tirano station and the Italian terminus — The railway’s southern gateway: a lively little piazza, easy connections to Italian trains and buses, and a real sense of crossing cultures. It’s where Swiss precision meets Italian life — coffee, gelato, and that satisfying click of a border crossing by rail.
- Morteratsch Glacier viewpoint and hikes — Accessible from the line and painfully instructive: the view of the glacier’s retreat and the marked trail with info panels. It’s both beautiful and a living lesson in climate change, with clear evidence of how the landscape has shifted in a century.
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Hi, I’m Johan (Netherlands 🇳🇱), the creator of TakeYourBackpack. Over the past decade, I’ve backpacked through 80+ countries across six continents, gaining extensive experience with independent travel, long-term trips, and overland routes.