The Bernina Express is a must-see trip from Switzerland to Italy along the World Heritage Site known as the Rhaetian Railway through the beautiful landscapes of Albula and Bernina. It connects Chur (or Davos) to Poschiavo and Tirano in Italy, crossing the Swiss Engadin Alps and important cities such as St. Moritz, an alpine resort in this region.

The Rhaetian Railway company manages the Bernina Express Train for tourism or sightseeing. It is also a regular regional service that serves these cities but has panoramic wagons with enlarged windows and multilingual audio guides (English, Italian, and German) on board. The Bernina Express is a famous train among tourists and connects in Tirano with the bus service via Lake Como in Italy to Lugano in Switzerland.

 

The Rhaetian Railway brings together two historic railway lines which cross the Swiss Alps via two crossings. The Albula line is located in the northwestern part of the property with 67 km. It was constructed between 1898 and 1904 and has been operated by the Rhaetian Railway since its inauguration. The Bernina line has 61 km and was built between 1908 and 1910. It operated independently until the 1940s when it was acquired by the Rhaetian Railway. Both form the Bernina Express?s route and were declared a World Heritage Site in 2008.

 

The journey on the Bernina Express through this World Heritage Site is a four-hour rail journey through numerous bridges, tunnels, galleries, and the landscapes of the Bernina Pass, reaching 2,253 meters above the sea.

 

The construction of the route is an example in the use of the railway to overcome the isolation of central alpine settlements at the beginning of the 20th century, with a considerable and lasting socio-economic impact on mountain life. Furthermore, the railway constitutes a remarkable technical, architectural and environmental ensemble and embodies architectural and civil engineering achievements in harmony with the landscapes they pass through.