← All articles · Italy · 15 March 2016

Tirano, Italy: Boarding the red Bernina train from valley floor to snow

Tirano in March 2016: a frescoed basilica, a dog in a red coat, and the red Bernina railway that climbs out of the Italian valley straight into the snow.

Tirano is a small town at the end of an Italian valley, and it's where the Swiss narrow gauge railway starts. Red trains sit in the street outside the church, and within the hour they're up in the snow. We spent a March 2016 morning here before getting on one.

The basilica

The big church at the edge of town is decorated top to bottom, and the same scene keeps coming back: a woman appearing to a man on a mountain path, told in glass on one wall and in paint on another.

A circular stained glass window showing a robed woman appearing to a kneeling man on a mountain path, set in carved stone with cherubs at the corners — The apparition in glass, with a village painted into the hillside behind it.

A faded wall fresco of the same scene, a haloed woman meeting a man carrying a basket on a path winding between green hills and small farmhouses — The same moment painted on the wall, complete with the farms and the road up the valley.

A tall stained glass window with a stylised gold and red design and a scroll lettered Sancta Virgo Virginum, flanked by stone statues — Sancta Virgo Virginum, in a window that looks far more modern than the building around it.

The town

A small scruffy terrier in a bright red waterproof coat standing on wet cobbles at the end of a pink lead — March in the Alps: even the dogs are in outerwear.

Dileep sitting alone at an outdoor table with a coffee outside a bar with green awnings lettered Caffe Birra e Bibite and Panini Pizza Toast — Caffè, birra e bibite. Panini, pizza, toast. All the food groups, and the whole terrace to himself.

Onto the red train

The red Rhaetian Railway trains wait at the bottom of the valley looking slightly too cheerful for what they're about to do. The line gets up the mountain on curves alone, doubling back over itself again and again.

Dileep walking along the road beside a line of bright red Rhaetian Railway carriages with panoramic windows, mountains rising behind — The red carriages waiting at Tirano, with a stack of logs and a mountain behind them.

View from a train window along the curving red carriages, passing bare trees, sheds and a green pasture with a steep dark mountainside above — Out of the window on the first bend, still down among the barns and the bare trees.

The red train curving along a ledge on a steep scree slope, with the track it has already climbed looping back below through a field — The line loops back under itself. That track down in the field is where we were a minute ago.

Inga smiling at a train window in sunglasses and a shearling coat, with a completely snow covered pass and telegraph poles outside — An hour out of the valley and it's a different planet. Same train, same seat.

The line carries on over the pass and down to St. Moritz, which is where we got off. After that we came back down into Italy for Milan.