St. Bernard Pass

One year we crossed from Switzerland into Italy at the San Bernardo (Saint Bernard) Pass. As we drove, we passed a tiny old Swiss village with wood-sided houses with slate roofs, and we saw many cows in many pastures, as we followed the winding road toward the mountain in the distance. We climbed the mountain, listening to the melody of bells of every note in several octaves, that filled the air from field after field of grazing cows. The Swiss are great at this, but sometimes the poor cow has a bell so large she has a problem reaching the grass.

There’s a tunnel through the mountain up there somewhere, but we were going to drive over the very top. The entrance to the tunnel is far up the mountain, so even if we used the tunnel, it's quite a drive to get to Italy. Some distance beyond the tunnel entrance we saw a large cement structure protruding from the mountain. It was an air shaft to ventilate the tunnel.

Saint Bernard of Menthon built a hospice at the top of this mountain in the 10th century, and since the 12th century, Augustinian monks — with the help of Saint Bernard dogs — have rescued stranded travelers. We were in fresh snow before we reached the top, and we ate brunch in the RV while parked next to the old abbey. From our mountain peak dining room there was a lovely view, with a large lake, a couple of buildings, the border crossing with Italy, and snow capped mountains beyond.

At this mountain top, near the border with Italy, we visited inside the old abbey. We saw pictures and read stories of the famous rescue dogs of years ago, and visited the kennel that held several large St. Bernard dogs, and enclosures that held a half dozen puppies. The atmosphere, the surroundings and the equipment were just about, but not quite, what one would expect at this ancient, storied mountain top.

The unexpected? In this thousand-year-old monastery the pans containing the dog food were Coca-Cola trays. (And we have pictures to prove that.)

We drove quite a distance down the mountain on the Italian side before we found a village, but there were houses or other buildings, here and there. At a few places there were what appeared to be the ruins of military bunkers, left over from some war, and for quite a distance it was obvious a recent forest fire had devastated miles of the mountainside.

There are but few guardrails along the edge of this twisty mountain road, and we could see indications where the rail had been hit or scraped many times. Strange as it seems, we didn’t see any vehicles down the side of the mountain where there wasn’t any rail and where the drop-off was just as immediate and steep. What does that tell us about guard-rails?