Switzerland!

Got my travel documents in the post today. Two weeks until I go on holiday to Spiez in the land of chocolate, cuckoo clocks and trains that run on time. Not only is Speiz a holiday resort in the heart of the beautiful Bernese Oberland, but it's also a major railway junction and operational headquarters of the Bern Lötchberg Simplon railway.

The BLS over the Lötchberg pass is one of the world's classic rail routes, with a 3% ruling grade in both directions. It's part of a major international through route between northern and southern Europe, carrying heavy passenger and freight traffic. Spiez is the start of the mountain section; the north ramp runs up the narrow Kander valley, with the famous double loop at Blausee-Mitholz. At the end of the grade the line plunges through the 9 mile summit tunnel bored through solid granite, before the spectacular south ramp, descending on a ledge high up the Rhone valley through a succession of tunnels and bridges, to end at the junction at Brig with the SBB Simplon route, leading on into Italy.

I'll try not to spend my entire holiday watching trains, and take at least some pictures that aren't of Re4/4s, Re465s and the new Re485s!