Saturday, July 10, 2021

Driving through tunnels in Switzerland

Driving through central Switzerland today, with the many highway tunnels of varying lengths (the longest one on our route being the 9.25 kilometers of the Seelisberg tunnel), I remembered driving through the Gotthard Tunnel with Andrea and Miles in the summer of 2002, six months after it reopened after a fire. It is 16.9 kilometers long, but with its two-way traffic it seemed much longer as I drove. I grew tenser and tenser as I thought about how dependent on other people we were: not just all the drivers being careful, but also all the workers and tunnel architects who had built the tunnel and then renovated it after the fire. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 10 July 2021)

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Seelisbergtunnel_Nordportal.jpg
North entrance of the Seelisberg Tunnel.


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