Kiental-Griesalp: traveling along Europe's steepest bus route

After microstates like Andorra and Liechtenstein, Switzerland is the most mountainous country in Western Europe, and this is evident in its roads.

The Sphinx observatory and Jungfraujoch, a railway station at more than 3,400 meters
Lauterbrunnen, an idyllic village in Switzerland with a 297-meter waterfall

The Alps cover 60% of Switzerland's land area. The country boasts 48 peaks exceeding 4,000 meters, and the average elevation of Swiss territory is 1,350 meters. Building roads in such a landscape can be extremely challenging, as demonstrated by the Kiental-Griesalp route in the canton of Bern. This road was built in 1898 at the initiative of local hotelier Christian Bettschen to connect Kiental—a village with a current population of 210, situated at an altitude of 960 to 997 meters above sea level—with the Griesalp pasture, a tourist resort located at 1,400 meters.

This road features gradients of up to 28%. It is a two-way road, though there are small pull-offs in certain spots where a vehicle can wait while another travels up or down. The Kiental-Griesalp route is also the steepest road in Europe accessible to buses; between May and October, it is served by Line 220 of the Swiss postal minibuses, which transport passengers and luggage to Griesalp. Other vehicles are prohibited from using the road while the buses are making their ascent to prevent traffic jams. A few days ago, Driving Tour Travels released an interesting video of a drive along this road (English commentary on the route is available via subtitles, which you can enable in the video player):

You can see some screenshots from this video here. As you can see, the road is very steep and narrow—with sections wide enough for only one vehicle—and features beautiful waterfalls and impressive rock faces along the sides. In the video, you can hear the distinctive, powerful horns of the Mercedes-Benz Vario minibuses used by the Swiss postal bus service to signal their arrival well in advance.