In the south eastern corner of Switzerland far away from the tourist hot spot of the Bernese Oberland and the international financiers of Zurich lies the largest but least densely populated canton of Graubunden. The mountains may not be as high as those of the Bernese Oberland but for railway enthusiasts it has an attraction that is hard to beat - the Rhaetische Bahn or "Little Red One" as it likes to be known. Of the hundreds of bridges, tunnels and galleries which grace the different routes of the RhB, none is more famous or iconic than the Landwasser viaduct. This stone built structure crosses the Landwasser river on a very tight curve before plunging straight into a tunnel in the cliff side on the southern side of the valley.

The Landwasser viaduct is on the line which connects St. Moritz in the upper Engadine valley via Samedan, the Albula pass, Filisur, Tiefencastel, Thusis and Reichenau to Chur, the cantonal capital of Graubunden. The Glacier Express, billed as "The World's slowest express" crosses the Landwasser on its journey to Zermatt at the foot of the Materhorn in the 8 hour distant canton of Valais. The Bernina express which connects Chur to the Italian town of Tirana also travels up the Albula valley.

I doubt there is a RhB fan anywhere who does not want to see and experience this incredible feat of not just engineering, but imagination; the audacity to ignore nature and just "keep on trucking". Finding the Landwasser viaduct is not difficult. It is located between Tiefencastel and Filisur. There is only one road from Tiefencastel to Filisur, so Sat Nav is not necessary. The road is a minor one as the Albula pass is closed during the winter months. It is well paved and wide enough in the lower reaches of the valley. Travelling from Tiefencastel, the viaduct comes into view while you are still a few miles away. Deciding where to stop is not quite so easy without some prior preparation. Examination of a map shows that the road makes a "U" bend and crosses the Landwasser river just before heading up into the Albula valley towards Filisur. This "U" bend is the closest the road gets to the viaduct. There is a parking area and refreshment stall on the outside of the bend where you can park your car and head further east up the valley towards the viaduct. After about 15 minutes you come through the trees to be confronted with a view like this:


The path continues further up the valley but as there are no railway lines, we did not venture up there!

There are several other paths which lead off from the path by the river. Some of these are quite steep but if you persevere, you can pass under the railway on the northern side and then following the path towards the "Aussichtpunkt" (I think I've got the spelling right - it's a viewpoint), you climb above the level of the line and reach the location where all those iconic photos are taken.

The keen eyed observer will notice that the first two photos were taken in the morning. The tunnel entrance is in shadow. The next photo was taken in the early evening and as you can see, the tunnel entrance is in full sunshine. So the answer to the next question, is "Yes, we did make two visits!". The line is usually quite busy though when we got to the viewpoint we began to wonder if we had missed most of the day's activity as nothing passed by for some time. It wasn't difficult to pass the time though. Although we had been in Switzerland for almost two weeks, we had not met anyone from England, until now! Where else would you bump into a couple of english speakers except at a famous railway location? So we swapped stories about rail trips, visits, and the weather (Now at this point, non-residents of the British Isles will shrug and say "What is it about the Brits and the weather?". In our defence, I have to say that we genuinely had something to talk about. This was a few days after July's flash flooding in England. A photo of the Thames flooding at Pangbourne had made the local (Graubunden) press. For their part, our companions had arrived in Interlaken as a hailstorm unleashed stones the size of cricket balls on the town. Every flat surface of their car was mottled like a golf ball. Having camped in Interlaken for the two previous years, we wondered if either our tent or convertible's roof would have survived such an onslaught).

The wait was worthwhile. A St. Moritz bound Glacier Express came through...


Trains often pass in Filisur, so not too long later this train appeared


We didn't think there would be any more trains for a while, so we headed back to where we had parked the car but we were mistaken. Another train passed but we weren't in a position to take photos. We continued on back to the car, gaped in shock at the state of our fellow enthusiasts "hail beaten" car and headed back to our campsite in Churwalden.

And the inspiration for the title of this blog entry? I have a keen interest in Switzerland and visit the swiss info website regularly. From time to time, reports appear about bears which have crossed into Switzerland from Italy where they are trying to reestablish bears in the Alps. Last year there were two bears somewhere in the upper Landwasser valley. Earlier this year one of them was deliberately killed near Tiefencastel because it had lost its fear of humans and was regularly raiding rubbish bins for food. The other bear is still shy of people, so if you go down to the woods today it is unlikely that you will meet it.

If you are interested in seeing more photos of the Landwasser viaduct, quite a large number have been posted on Google earth.

Postscript.
Another view point: My wife was just scanning through her photos from last summer and in one taken from the Bernina Express as it came off the viaduct there is a photographer standing by the track. Legal? If it was the UK then definitely not, but in Switzerland you are generally expected to look out for yourself.