The night came. We were still driving through the highway. We wanted to avoid paying for the highway in the Czech Republic and we met road reconstructions and entry bans. Finally, we drove to the highway and the way went much faster from now on. We stopped on the parking in Germany, hoping for the clean toilets and the shower. But there was nothing like that. Just a few toilets in bad condition. Must be enough for this night as it was already late.
Jurek and Kaprys slept all the night long, I was woken up few times by a headache. It started the previous evening and I should know, it won’t stop. But I didn’t want to take pills, believing that it will go after night rest. It didn’t though. Jurek made coffee and tea for us, I helped myself with 2 ibuprofen pills. They started to work after few hours, and just then I was able to change Jurek behind the wheel.
We were driving whole day. Davos in Switzerland was our direction. Our route was going partially through Austria what cost us 120 EUR. There were too many road signs when we were crossing the border. We followed lane for cars under 3.5 tons which led us to the extremely long tunnel through rock mountains. Just behind the tunnel, we were changing motorway. Unfortunately, GPS led us straight into policeman’s arms. He told us we were missing vignette. We explained that the road signs were not clear and we didn’t have the possibility to return but naturally we planned to buy the vignette. He didn’t care and gave us 120 EUR fine. I was afraid I’m gonna faint when I heard the amount. After that it turned out that we were on the wrong road, so we had to go back a bit. If we chose the right way at the beginning we wouldn’t meet the policeman.
After a short drive, we crossed Swiss border and we stopped at the nearest petrol station to ask about the necessity of having a vignette. We got it for 40 CHF. I remember that during our trip to Romania we also bought a vignette at the gas station after the border. It was not our intention to drive for free through Austria, we would buy it if we had a chance!
It took me a long time till I could admire the view of high mountains again. We arrived at Davos. There was the route from Davos to Stelvio which was driven by Top Gear team. The plan was to sleep in Davos and to explore the route following morning. But life is not always going according to a plan. Just after Davos, we began to traverse higher and higher watching spectacular and jaw-dropping views. There is no pictures nor words which can describe what we saw. There were terrifying moments with almost 360 degrees curves by the edge of the abyss. I found a little comfort in the fact that the big buses were driving there. If they can, our Transporter can do it too. There were plenty of cars which overtook us in dangerous places on the winding road. It looked like the way was straight for them. Finally, we reached the point of 2200 meters above sea level and at the same time, it was height where the snow probably stays all year round. It was very cold up there. Then we began to drive down. It was really hard to believe that a moment before we were so high and everything looked so different. Huge rocks and the void.
It was already evening and a good time to start looking for a place to stay for the night. We decided not to continue the route to Stelvio (especially that it was going through valleys not high mountains) and to find a way straight to Monaco. Wild camping is not legal in Switzerland that’s why we wanted to find something not visible from the main road. We were considering campsite with hot shower but we were afraid of high prices. It was already dark and the route suddenly started to rise again so we just stopped a car in the nearest bay. Straight away we went to sleep with the intention of leaving the place early morning.
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