We stopped in Bellinzona, a beautiful city where we were going to catch the train. 
As I wanted to be as light as possible for the future days I decided to send home a picture to my family and we went to the local post office to mail it out. After finding a suitable box we went to the serving desk to be told in severe terms by the staff member that we had to take a ticket and queue for service. Finding this incredibly humorous we took our ticket and on the spur of the moment thought this would make a great photo of the orderliness of the people.
The ticket dispenser is behind the woman and the numbers in red on the wall are the ticket numbers and a wait time. Note that here were hardly any people there at the time, possible about 4 customers and 4 staff. Once the flash went off there were startled responses from the customers and staff and we were loudly told in English by a staff member that it was NOT allowed to take photos in post offices, this was ILLEGAL in Switzerland. I was reprimanded a second time when I eventually was served. Yet again it seems we had upset the locals. :-) From Bellinzona we intended to tackle the Gotthard pass, the most famous of the passes between North and South in Switzerland. However the news wasn't promising...
The St. Gotthard Tunnel between Switzerland and Italy is closed until June 25 because of rockslides that killed two drivers and blocked the tunnel May 31. Traffic is being diverted to the San Bernardino Pass, which adds almost 100 miles to the trip between Zurich and Milan. The route may be congested because of the extra traffic, but additional trains are being run through the St. Gotthard railway tunnel, which wasn't affected by the slide. Swiss officials plan to detonate trouble spots between Amsteg and Goeschenen to prevent further slides.When we asked around we were told that it was either closed, closed to cars, able to be used but you had to push your cycles 500 meters, rocks the size of living rooms were falling, the police would stop you, the police would let you through etc etc. No one knew....
The ride to the pass would be easy, with a gentle gradient, however we decided to take the train in case we had to turn back as there was no camping on the pass itself and we wouldn't have the time to do a return journey in the daylight. So on a near empty train we made for Goeschenen the first settlement after the pass and enjoyed a spectacular ride up. There is only one word that describes the Swiss Alps, magnificent. Sure I have seen big mountains before, and had enjoyed the Southern Alps in New Zealand, but there is something about the Swiss Alps that makes others pale to mere foothills.
Giant granite mountains rear out of the valley floor in near vertical slabs with trees impossibly embedded into the sides. Alongside these majestic visions of nature are the amazing works of man. Huge 4 lane motorways disappear into holes in the mountains to emerge later over massive bridges. Long tunnels pierce the mountains and make the travel deceptably easy over what must have been formidably narrow and dangerous roads.
I was amazed at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Swiss, as if the massive structures already in place were not enough we were told by a fellow passenger that they are planing to bypass the entire pass itself by digging an new tunnel directly under the Alps. Sure enough on the net I found this article...
The Gotthard Base Tunnel With a planned length of 57 km (35 miles) and a total of 153.5 km (95 miles) of tunnels, shafts and passages planned, it will be the longest railway tunnel in the world upon completion, ahead of the current longest, the Seikan Tunnel.Not only is this underway (we saw the beginnings of the dig later on), but a village at the top complained they would lose their train service and tourists. Their solution was to dig an 800 meter hole to a station deep under the alps and run a lift from their village down to the tunnel.
This is seriously being considered we were told. Anyway we reached the top of the pass and quickly assembled our bikes to make a quick getaway if the police tried to stop us. There was no one around, the station apart from 2 soldiers taking a break was empty, we had to find someone to ask which road was the right one to leave on. As we began to cycle down an empty road we were pulled up by the police. In English an officer told us he recommended that we use an alternative dirt road on the other side of the valley, but because he saw our tyres he felt that were better off on the current road. "But what of the falling rocks?" we asked. We were assured that they had only affected the autobahn and we would be OK.
So began a delightful part of our trip, we had the entire road to ourselves, with only a few local vehicles around, in perfect weather we descended the pass into the heart of Switzerland whizzing down empty silent roads and stopping with impunity to take photos.
A pic of the rock that caused the damage.