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)

North entrance of the Seelisberg Tunnel.


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Driving through tunnels in Switzerland