St. Moritz

St. Moritz sits at 1,822 m in the Engadin, a high valley in Graubünden that runs south-west to north-east and gets an unusual amount of sun — the resort claims 322 days a year, and while nobody has audited it, the light up here is genuinely different.

It is where the winter holiday was invented. In September 1864 the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet four English summer guests that they would enjoy the place in winter, and offered to pay their travel if not. They came at Christmas, stayed until Easter, and told everyone. Winter tourism dates from that bet.

The town has hosted two Winter Olympics, several world championships, and more than a century of people who wanted to be seen. It remains expensive and slightly unreal.

The lake and the valley

The lake freezes solid in winter and the town puts things on it: horse racing on the ice, polo, cricket, and a golf tournament. In summer it is sailing and windsurfing, with a marked path all the way round in about an hour.

Beyond it the Upper Engadin lakes — Champfèr, Silvaplana, Sils — run south-west in a chain, with Silvaplana the windsurfing centre because the Maloja wind arrives every afternoon with reliability you can set a watch by.

Sils Maria, at the far end, is where Nietzsche spent seven summers and wrote most of Zarathustra. His house is a small museum, and the walk out to the Chastè peninsula is the one he took daily.

The mountains

Corviglia, straight up from the town by funicular, is the main ski area and gives the classic view down the lakes.

Diavolezza, at 2,978 m, is the one to do in summer: the cable car ends opposite the Bernina massif with the Pers and Morteratsch glaciers below, and in winter there is a guided glacier descent from the top.

Muottas Muragl, reached by a 1907 funicular, has the best view in the valley for the least effort — the whole chain of lakes laid out below — and a panorama path along the ridge.

The Engadin houses

Worth knowing what you are looking at. The traditional houses here are thick-walled, with deep funnel-shaped window recesses and sgraffito decoration — patterns scratched through white lime plaster to the darker layer beneath. The villages of Guarda, Ardez and Zuoz have the best of it, and Zuoz is twenty minutes away by train.

Art

The Segantini Museum holds the work of Giovanni Segantini, who painted these mountains in the 1890s and died at 41 on the Schafberg above Pontresina while finishing his alpine triptych. The museum was built for that triptych and it is worth the visit even if the name means nothing to you.

Getting there

• By train — Zurich about three and a half hours via Chur; the last stretch is the Albula line, which is UNESCO-listed and the best part of the Glacier Express route.
• Bernina Express — St. Moritz is the northern end, with Tirano in Italy four hours south.
• No airport, no motorway. Getting here is deliberately slow and the journey is half the reason to come.

When to go

Mid-December to March for the winter season and the events on the frozen lake. July to September for walking, when the valley is green, the lakes are warm enough to swim in and the prices are a fraction of the winter ones.

Late June and November are the shoulder months when much of the town closes.