Gallery: June 21 — Upper Engadin

I wanted to see the Upper Engadin, but not spend that much time on it, so I just took the train up to Pontresina and back. These photographs are all from the return trip.

So here is Pontresina, to start with.

Camera countryside.

The Upper Engadin, somewhat counterintuitively, is a lot more open and flat than the Lower Engadin. What is that arch on the right? (The train was at full speed here — the shed just happened to get caught in the shot.)

Mountains downriver.

This is the mountain that I took pictures of a few times from Zernez in the evenings. It's kind of suggestive from this angle.

Well, this is La Punt Chamues-ch. (repeat after me: Cha-mweshtch.) I liked the onion dome of the church.

Another town, or maybe a further part of La Punt Chamues-ch.

A cool little rail building, same roof as the station buildings but all wood walls rather than masonry. (JA!)

These appear to be modern reinterpretations of the wood-between-masonry tradition. Kind of cool.

More open country.

A map of the Rhätische Bahn, the Graubünden rail network. It's printed on a shelf between the facing seats of the train.

Another railway building with this distinctive exterior stair.

Heavy terracing.

Upper Engadin buildings seem to be newer on the whole than those of the Lower Engadin, at least from what I could see from the train. I don't know if the towns are actually newer.

The left wing of this building has an almost Lindal-like prow.

Very elegant steeple.

That same mountain, now acquiring an aspect more similar to what can be seen of it from Zernez.

I forget what direction this shot is towards.

There it is again.

Another little rail buildling.

Reflected me while the train was going through a tunnel.

On the left you can just see the receding entrance of another tunnel.

Piz Linard back in view — that means we're getting close to Zernez.

Full view of Piz Linard, plus Zernez below.

The railroad swoops around in a big curve on this approach to Zernez — from the position of Piz Linard you can see that we've overshot and have to continue around on the curve to get back. I'm not sure why it's like that.