We begin in St. Moritz because this is more or less where the whole idea began. In the winter of 1864 the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet a group of departing English summer guests that they would enjoy his valley in the cold months too, and staked their travel costs on it. They came back at Christmas, stayed until Easter, and the Alpine winter holiday was invented on the spot. A century and a half later the town still runs on that idea, and still does it better than almost anywhere.
But the name has a way of swallowing the valley it sits in. St. Moritz is one bright, moneyed town on a lake; the Engadin is the long, high valley around it — a chain of frozen lakes, larch forests that turn gold in autumn, and quiet stone villages like Sils Maria, where Nietzsche spent his summers, and Pontresina under the Bernina peaks. The light up here is the thing people remember: thin, dry and almost painfully clear, because you are at 1,800 metres and the air has nothing in it.
Winter here is partly the skiing on Corviglia, reached by funicular from the middle of town, and partly everything that happens down on the frozen lake — the White Turf horse races, polo and even cricket played on the ice, and the long lunches on sun terraces that are an institution in their own right. You do not have to ski a single run to have a full day of it.
This is the first issue of Amorielli, and the plan is simple: to answer, place by place, the two questions that actually shape a trip — where to stay, and when to go. No star ratings, no endless listings, no brochure language. And if you can, come in the slow way, over the Bernina Pass on the Rhaetian Railway, which is a reason to make the trip on its own. Thank you for reading the first one.
— Vivienne Hartwell, Editor-in-Chief
The contents
-
On the cover
Where to Stay in St. Moritz: Villages, Hotels, When to Go
St. Moritz is really two towns and a valley of villages. Here is how to choose between the Dorf on the hill and the Bad by the lake, which hotels suit which trip, and when the snow and the crowds line up.
Read the guide →
-
The Room
The tower rooms at Badrutt's Palace
The hotel with the fairy-tale tower opened in 1896 and has been the address on the lake ever since; the winter-season idea itself was hatched a little earlier, up the hill at the family's first house, the Kulm. Ask for a lake-facing room — those are the ones people mean when they say they stayed here.
-
The Table
Lunch on Corviglia
Half the point of skiing above St. Moritz is stopping for a long lunch on the mountain. La Marmite, near the top of the Corviglia funicular, has fed the fur-coat crowd truffles and caviar for decades; the sun terraces around it are the real institution, ski boots or not.
-
The Arrival
In over the pass, by train
You can fly to Zurich and drive three hours, but the Rhaetian Railway's climb into the Engadin — over the Albula line's spiralling viaducts, or the open Bernina Pass from the Italian side — is UNESCO-listed and a reason to come in the first place. Sit on the right, and don't rush it.
Never miss an issue.
One considered letter when a new issue lands — a new destination, where to base, and when to go.