The Gotthard Pass or St. Gotthard Pass at 2,106 m (6,909 ft) is a mountain pass in the Alps traversing the Saint-Gotthard Massif and connecting northern Switzerland with southern Switzerland. The pass lies between Airolo in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, and Andermatt in the German-speaking canton of Uri, and connects further Bellinzona and Lugano to Lucerne, Basel, and Zürich. The Gotthard Pass lies at the heart of the Gotthard, a major transport axis of Europe, and it is crossed by three traffic tunnels, each being the world's longest at the time of their construction: the Gotthard Rail Tunnel (1882), the Gotthard Road Tunnel (1980) and the Gotthard Base Tunnel (2016). With the Lötschberg to the west, the Gotthard is one of the two main north-south routes through the Swiss Alps.
The area of the Gotthard Pass from the west
Lago della Piazza and Hospice area
Muleteers at the Gotthard
The modern concrete span of the third Devil's Bridge (Teufelsbrücke, built 1958) showing an older bridge (built 1830) below
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries : Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
Satellite view of the Alps
The Dolomites (Italy) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
An "Alp" refers to a high elevation pasture frequented only in summer. It often includes several huts and small places of worship (here the Alpe Bardughè in Ticino).
The Alps extend in an arc from France in the south and west to Slovenia in the east, and from Monaco in the south to Germany in the north.
