San Bernardino
Intro
Near the crest of the pass lies the holiday resort San Bernardino. Bogs, pine trees and a special flora lend San Bernardino a unique atmosphere. The wet meadows around the village produce a wetland flora that boasts the largest number of species in the southern part of the Alps. In winter, when the pass road is closed, San Bernardino turns into a winter sport paradise.
Both a main road and a motorway lead from Chur via Thusis, through the valley of the Posterior Rhine (Hinterrhein) and the Grisons holiday region of Splügen/Rheinwald to Hinterrhein. While the motorway disappears into a tunnel as far as the village of San Bernardino, the mountain pass goes over a high, mysterious moor with sparkling pools and polished glacial rocks up to the top of the San Bernardino Pass at 2065 m and the beautiful mountain lake of Lago Moesola.
Although now, south of the Alps, you are in Italian-speaking parts, it is still a long way to the Ticino: the road goes for more than 40 km through the southern Grisons valley of Misox (Valle Mesolcina).
The Bernardino Pass has been in use since Roman times. The main difficulty was not the pass itself but the tricky route through the 300 m deep Rhine gorge between Thusis and Zillis, which does not bear the name Via Mala ("Bad Road") for no reason.
