Enough with all these trains: time for a bit of history and a change of language. South through the Gotthard Tunnel to Bellinzona in Ticino, the main Italian-speaking area of Switzerland, where the three castles guarding the valley are a World Heritage Site. By happy coincidence, you can see the railway from them too.

The obvious entrance when walking from the station, appears less and less inviting the closer you get to it. An odd concrete slit in the corner of a modern piazza, with a sign moulded into the concrete "Premio Beton 89" (Concrete Prize 89), followed by a dingy passageway to a couple of lifts. No notices or signs, so I pressed the button and waited. Gave up and started walking away, when there was a ping and the doors opened. Again, no signs in the lifts, just two buttons, so I pressed the upper one, and away went the lift to an outer courtyard in the castle. Odd.

Here are the middle (left) and highest (top centre) castles taken from the lowest one in the city centre:

View north to the Alps from the city, showing the start of the two mountain passes which the castles were intended to guard. On the left is the route to the Gotthard, and on the right towards the San Bernadino and Chur. At one point there was a defensive wall right across the valley, but it was swept away in floods.

From the same viewpoint, a glimpse of some railway yards:

Walking round through the city centre, you can get to a nice bridge to the south, with a view up to the middle castle. Centre-cab diesel shunting/trip (?) loco, and a triple-headed freight, possibly construction traffic from the Gotthard base tunnel. Slight case of shutter lag with the front loco just behind the gantry.

Onwards and upwards to the battlements, you get the reverse view, plus a distant view of Lago Maggiore:

...and another freight train, loco possibly Railpool Railcare 186.104 "Flash Fire" (looks like one I saw elsewhere this week, also at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gian2812-ferrovieinrete/8439885037/), with a centre-cab diesel at the back of the train:

And on the way up the the top castle, basking in the afternoon heat, was this fine specimen:

Back at the station, I somehow resisted the temptation to take a photo of a bus belonging to Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi, obviously with the initials painted on close to the exhaust pipe. Many of the S-Bahn/local trains were the white Tilo EMUs, but some were this type of push-pull:

Back to the hotel, and sitting outside waiting for my soup to arrive, with a nice Klosterbräu beer...

...I glimpsed the white roofs of some coaches pulling into Göschenen station. Peering over, it looked like the Orient Express, so I grabbed my phone, and hopped down for some pics. One of the locos appears to be in an older livery, white/cream as well as red. It had pulled in to be overtaken by an ICN. Looking it up afterwards, it's only on a very few occasions during the year that it's routed this way, so luck was on my side. Gave a friendly wave to the champagne-sipping diners: I wondered if that was "the done thing", for a peasant to wave at the nobility, but to be fair, a lot waved back.

So, a cultural day with a few trains thrown in for good luck, not to mention the ice creams. I have to say the the Swiss version of Italian is a lot easier to understand than the Swiss version of German.

Schlof guat und morn a guata Start!