Great St. Bernard Pass is the 3rd highest road pass in Switzerland. Located in the heart of the Swiss Alps, the Great St Bernard Pass connects Martigny, in the canton of Valais in Switzerland, with the Aosta Valley in Italy. This road trip start from Courchevel 1850 where we have stayed for 2 nights to Courmayeur, Italy passing through the Great Saint Bernard Pass.
1.5 hour later, we arrived at this anonymous town.
Later on, I found out this town is called Bourg St. Maurice. Also, the time we passed by this town was 11.08 am.
Another hour later, we reached a seemingly bigger town.
Looks like this is a tourist town, with many cars and people walking on the street. We pooled over the car to take some fresh air, also for a pee-break.
The Great Saint Bernad pass connects Switzerland and Italy. This route is the 3rd highest road pass (2469 m) in Switzerland, but is the lowest pass lying on the ridge between the two highest summits of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.
The Great Saint Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps. In 1800, Napoleon’s army used the pass to enter Italy, an event depicted in notable oil painting, Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass.
Straddling the highest point of the road, the Great St Bernard Hospice was founded in 1049 to provide a safe haven for travelers. The hospice later became famous for its use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations. The hospice is still operational today.
The pass is dominated by the statue of Saint Bernard, patron of mountaineers, which stands near a small lake and nearby on Swiss territory.
We continued to drive on. The kids had became impatience and kept asking his dad how long would that be. We arrived Courmayeur in about 1h 30 later.
Finally we had found our hotel. Luckily the hotel is big enough to provide free parking lot to the guests.
The living room with a sofa bed, and another mattress hidden beneath. This would be son’s bed for tonight.
The only room in the house, for husband and I.
William enjoyed sleeping here. He said it would be nice if our house got a front yard like this.
Just when we were about to leave, this friendly friend came to visit us. Its visitation had put off our schedule a little bit.
From there, we could see the courtyard of the hotel, looks great.
No responses yet