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Published: April 16th 2024
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Rhätische Bahn I
Departing in Chur for St. Moritz. My mum and I had booked a journey on panoramic trains in Switzerland. We had arrived in Basel a day before the actual journey would start and had spent an afternoon and a morning doing sightseeing in the city. At around noon on the 26
thof August, the actual trip was going to start. We met the group we were going to be on the train journey with at Basel SBB station. The meeting point was on one of the platforms (platform 9, reminded me of Harry Potter, but of course we were in the wrong place, no platform 9 ¾; and the platform would have been invisible for muggles anyway…). There were 29 of us on the trip. Our friendly and knowledgeable tour guide was born and lives in the canton of Graubünden, where our journey would take us. We caught the 13:06 train to Chur, and the journey took us along the scenic lakes Zürichsee and Walensee. On the other side of Walensee, the mountains are so steep that the villages there are only accessible by boat or by foot.
We arrived in Chur at 15:22, and at 15:58, our train towards St. Moritz departed. We were now on
Rhätische Bahn II
Our train, in the signature colour red. a narrow-gauge railway (track width: only one metre) operated by Rhätische Bahn with their signature red trains. The full Glacier Express Route runs from Zermatt below Matterhorn via Chur to St. Moritz. From St. Moritz down to Tirano in Italy, there is Bernina Express, another panoramic train. We learned that on the 122 kilometres from Chur to Tirano, there were 55 tunnels and 196 viaducts!
Our two-hour train ride from Chur to St. Moritz took us past Reichenau-Tamins and Thusis and into the steep Albula valley, past Filisur and Bergün. I was most impressed by the amazing work of engineering that was performed when building the railway. The train climbs up 1,200 metres, from Chur at around 600 m ASL to St. Moritz at 1,800 m ASL, going up the narrow Albula valley with its steep slopes. Often, the train turns inside a tunnel, and one emerges going into the opposite direction from the one the train entered the tunnel. Then one can look down on the rails below. Or, from a tall viaduct, one looks down into the gorge where the river Albula flows. When approaching Albula Pass, the train even changes the sides of the valley several
Going up Albula Pass
... in clouds and rain, but there was a certain magic to the atmosphere. times, which makes it rather confusing and disorienting, but in an exciting way. It was raining during the entire train ride, and the mountains and forests were partly covered in clouds. However, this gave an almost mystical appearance to the valley.
The train does not cross Albula Pass but drives into a tunnel and emerges on the other side not far from Preda. Then it descends into the Engadin valley and drives up the valley via Bever, Samedan, and Celerina to St. Moritz. The main river in the Engadin is the river Inn, “En” in Rhaeto-Romanic, a local language. Thus, “Engadin” means “Valley of the River Inn”. The Inn is the river that feeds the beautiful lakes in the valley. When arriving in St. Moritz, we had a nice view of the lake just below the town, Moritzsee, or Moritz Lake.
A bus took the tour group to our hotel, Hotel Laudinella, located in the lower part of St. Moritz, St. Moritz-Bad, just 500 metres from the lake. We were given a nice room, with the floor and part of the walls covered in Swiss pine, which gave the room a wonderful scent. From our window and our
Piz Nair I
Funicular railway at the foot of the mountain, departing in St. Moritz. balcony, we could see Piz Nair, the backyard mountain of St. Moritz, 3,057 metres tall. Piz Nair is Rhaeto-Romanic and means “Black Mountain”. And indeed, the rocks around the peak of the mountain are black.
We had a bit of time to settle into our room before heading down to the restaurant for a buffet dinner. I am not a big fan of buffet dinners because usually the food gets overcooked and is only lukewarm. It’s fine for salad and dessert, but not a great thing for the main course. Anyway, the food was okay.
On Sunday morning, the temperature was around 11°C, and there were rain showers. I went for a run around the lake and did not mind the weather too much. The whole region is beautiful even in the most horrible weather. I did notice the difference in altitude, though, I was panting a little more than usually.
My mum and I had breakfast from the buffet in our hotel. We had the day at our own disposal; thus we caught the bus into St. Moritz-Dorf to Schulhausplatz, located rather centrally. We wanted to go up Piz Nair. This requires taking three different means
Piz Nair II
Going up steep slopes. Wonderful engineering! of transport: first a funicular railway up to Chantarella (2,008 m ASL), second another funicular railway up to Corviglia (2,486 m ASL), third a cable car to Piz Nair (3,057 m ASL). The ride up and back down normally costs 79.20 CHF per adult (yes, the decimal point is in the right spot, it is almost 80 Swiss Francs per person indeed!), but we had been given a St. Moritz Guest Card for the day, which allowed us to ride up and down for free. Ha! What a deal!
I was, once more, amazed by the engineering. The slopes the funicular railway goes up are extremely steep, and the first part of the journey even goes through a tunnel. Let alone the cable car, where the cable spans large distances between one post and the next and carries a comparatively heavy car. It was still raining, and clouds were partly covering the mountains and the valley. But we could get a few glimpses of the lake, the town of St. Moritz, and the surrounding valley. As we got on the cable car up to Piz Nair, the wind started howling, and once we arrived on the peak, there was
Piz Nair III
The funicular railway going from Chantarella to Corviglia. not too much to do. It was wet and windy, so we sat down in the restaurant for a cup of tea, and I took a walk around the building. While initially the valley and the cable car station below had still been visible, it all got covered more and more in clouds. After some 45 minutes, we rode down all the way again.
We had lunch at Confiserie Hanselmann, a family-owned chocolate shop in St. Moritz. We had a bowl of Bündner barley soup, a local specialty, and then a nice piece of cake, apricot puff pastry.
In the afternoon, we went to Segantini Museum. Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) was a painter who lived in Engadin for the last five years of his life and who is well-known for his painting of high mountains. The museum is located in a round building crowned with a dome. It is based on the pavilion that Segantini had planned for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. The pavilion in Paris, however, was never realised. In the dome of the house in St. Moritz, Segantini’s most well-known work is shown, the Alpine Triptych. The three parts of it visualise becoming, being, and
Piz Nair IV
The mountains hiding behind clouds. passing away in alpine scenery.
After visiting the museum, we caught the bus back to our hotel and had a bit of time to relax, meditate, and read, before going to the restaurant in our hotel for dinner and then having an early night. The next day, we were going to catch Bernina Express, which would take us down to Tirano in Italy – and which will be the next blog post.
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