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From
Devero to Brig : Italy and Switzerland
It is 6:25 a.m. when I toke the Cisalpine train that
will bring me from Milan to Domodossola. I arrive at Domodossola at
8:10 a.m. and one hour later I toke the bus to Baceno; finally,
another bus bring me to Devero, a small village surrounded by
the Alps.
Devero (altitude 1,640 meters) is placed in the
extreme north of Italy, few kilometers from Switzerland, and it is
included in the Natural Park Veglia-Devero, an area of rare beauty:
majestic mountains, fir forests, lakes and waterfalls create a breat-taking
landscape.
A narrow path led me through the wood. After one
hour of walk I am at an altitude of 2,000 and the fir forests is
replaced by wide grass fields, with few trees here and there. A
sinuous river furrows the field, providing water for plants and animals. The presence of
man is witnessed just by a couple of houses completely made by stone
and by a herd of goats.
The "last" part of the path is very steep,
but it is far easier than the walk that I plan to do tomorrow!
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I reach the Combi-Lanza hut, where I'm going to
spend the night, at 4 p.m. The hut is small, but quite comfortable:
the inside, made by wood, is divided in two areas, a "dinner
room" and a bedroom with room for nine persons. There are blankets
and pillows; in the dinner room there is even a gas stove and the
pottery to cook an hot meal!
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This is one of the many hut built by the CAI (Alpine
Club of Italy); these structures, always open and nearly free, can
be used both as emergency refuge or as base for climbing or two-days
excursions.
The alarm of my clock wake me up at 5 a.m., two
hours before sunset. How much I'd like to continue to sleep in my
warm sleeping bag! But this is an unique opportunity to do some
night photography in the mountains.
Out of the hut, the temperature is cold, but not so
cold as I thought. The limpid, starry sky and the Moon lit a little
the landscape. I mount the camera on my Manfrotto 055 NAT tripod;
the shutter speeds range from 30" to 10" at iso 100: such
long exposures are not a problem if you have a sturdy tripod and a
good digital SLR (now I use the Canon 350D, but in the past I have
got equally good results with Nikon cameras).
The sky becomes gradually brighter. The colors of
sunrise paint it of pink, orange and red. The sun appears between
the distant mountains and suddenly everything is bathed into red
light!
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This magic light won't last long, and I try to take
as many images as I can to capture these fascinating moments.
After a brief breakfast I begin the second part of
the trip. For long stretches there is not a true path and it is necessary to walk between the
large rocks of the moraines. You have to pay attention - the wall is
very steep and if you fall you may get seriously injured.
The efforts are repaid by a wonderful view when I
reach the Cornera Pass and I see the Eggishorn
mount, covered by glaciers. I am in Switzerland!
The path follows the valley of a small river. It is
a slow a difficult walk but, again, the efforts are paid off by the
beauty of the landscape. I am amazed when I see a minute lake,
created by the thaw of a glacier. The lake is surrounded by rock and
ice; some singular ice structures, that remind the shape of a ship,
float in the cold water.
At 2 p.m. I am at Heiligkreuz, a very small village
of Switzerland, where I toke some photos of the wood-made houses and
the white church against the blue sky. I continue along an easy path
that follows the road and after one hour I reach Binn, another
small, beautiful village.
The long walk continue alternating road and path.
The landscape is characterized by the steep mountainsides of the
Binna Valley, by the fir forests and the many waterfalls.
I have passed by some minutes the village of
Ausserbinn when my attention is captured by some plants that
growns on the roadside. I look closer: these leaves are
unmistakably, it is the carnivorous plant Pinguicola...there
are hundreads of them in a ten meters area. This is not the
only nice surprise of the trip: I have also been lucky to
observe marmots, chamoises and squirrels.
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After reaching Fiesh, I follow the main road to Brig
for some kilometers, and I arrive at Deish at 6:30 p.m., where I
toke the bus to Brig. The large train station is in northern edge of the town,
and it connects Brig with Italy (Domodossola-Milan) and with other
town of Switzerland.
The train pass across the Simplon gallery (20
kilometers long!). After nine minutes we exit from the gallery: I am
back in Italy.
Information For
The Trip
How to get there
You can reach Domodossola from Milan; the train ticket
costs 9-10 Euro. From Domodossola, take the bus to Formazza, and get
off at Baceno, in front of the Common's palace, where you take the
bus to Devero.
From Devero, you can reach the Combi-Lanza hut in
3-4 hours of walk; I toke nearly 11 hours to go from the hut to
Fiesh, but, of course, I stopped every five minutes to take a photo
;-)
Every 30-40 minutes there is a bus that goes from
Fiesh to Brig. You can take this bus, or go to Brig by foot. It is a
18 kilometers walk. When you are at Brig, take the train for Milano;
the ticket costs 20 euro/30 Swiss Francs.
Money and documents
The Switzerland's currency are Swiss Francs; Euros
are generally accepted, and into the main towns you can find change
offices. The prices in Switzerland are higher than in the other
countries of Europe.
Every traveler must have a valid passport, while Visa are required for a continuous stay of more than three months.
Links
MySwitzerland (all you need to know about
Switzerland!) : http://usa.myswitzerland.com/en/welcome.cfm
Swissgeo (very detailed maps of Switzerland and
north Italy) : http://www.swissgeo.ch
Veglia-Devero Park : http://www.parks.it/parco.alpe.veglia.devero/Eindex.html
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