.jpg)
All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Gliding through train tunnels like a serpent along some of the world’s steepest railway tracks, the candy apple-red Bernina Express is a defining feature of the Engadin Valley, a stark contrast to the Swiss valley’s smoke-gray castles and craggy peaks visible from either side of the train’s panoramic windows. This entry into the Engadin is like a tasting menu of the area’s patchwork of landscapes: steep slopes descending into V-shaped valleys, icicle-colored alpine lakes, and hillsides blanketed in wooden huts.
Located in the southern stretch of the Swiss Alps in Graubünden, the country’s largest region, the Engadin Valley's 13 towns include one of Switzerland’s swankiest—St. Moritz, the host of the 1928 Winter Olympics. The mountain town was a popular summer locale for the Brits until the 1860s, when the Kulm Hotel transformed the area into a winter retreat with the help of the Cresta Run and Olympia Bob Run. (Considered the “birthplace of winter sports,” winter is the season that brings the most anticipated events of the year, like Snow Polo and White Turf, an international horse race on St. Moritz's famous frozen lake.)
But the valley is taking a cue from other winter favorites like the Italian Dolomites—which offer just as much or more in the summer and fall—and touting outdoor attractions like hikes to peaks nearly 10,000 feet high and mountain biking trails traversed by professional cyclists. Hotels are also taking notice, extending their seasonal opening dates so the Engadin can be a year-round retreat. Here are some of the best things to do and places to stay when visiting the stunning, sun-drenched Swiss valley outside of ski season.
All listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you book something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Getting to and around the Engadin Valley
From Zurich Airport, the train journey is around three hours from Landquart via Klosters to the St. Moritz station. From the canton’s capital of Chur, you can cruise on the UNESCO World Heritage Rhaetian Railway (RhB) on board the Bernina Express, or make the trip from Tirano, Italy via the Bernina Pass. The panoramic Glacier Express runs from the Engadin to the Matterhorn, connecting St. Moritz/Davos and Zermatt. If you’re driving, the ride is about three hours from Zurich and Milan, or four from Munich.
.jpg)
The best hotels for a stay and a meal
Sleep in the spot that kick started it all, the landmark Kulm Hotel, which began as a simple guesthouse in 1864 and the first hotel in St. Moritz. Peering down at the namesake Lake St. Moritz (a popular spot in summer for windsurfing), Kulm has an air of grandeur you’d expect from a historic hotel—without being stuffy. Sure, the people-watching is better than the Cannes Film Festival (while having an aperitif in the lobby, we spotted a few celebrities casually strolling through), but you’re just as likely to see guests in après-ski attire as stilettos and fur. The majority of the 150 rooms have been renovated by French interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon in a contemporary, alpine-chic style, swathed in pale blue and beige with ceilings of aromatherapy-approved, local Swiss stone pine.
Nearby, 155-room Badrutt's Palace is as much of a legend, a Gothic-style façade of pointed, jade-colored towers where Hitchcock honeymooned and Greta Garbo was one of the many famous guests. Sporting a dozen restaurants and bars—including the oldest nightclub in Switzerland, King’s Social House—Badrutt’s is home to everything from Japanese celeb chef Nobu’s La Coupole - Matsuhisa to mountainside restaurant and members’ club Paradiso.
A 10-minute drive away in the sleepy village of Pontresina, Kulm’s sister property, the horseshoe-shaped, 112-room Grand Hotel Kronenhof, is reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Kronenhof is the only five-star spot in the tiny town of 2,000, where the main drag is lined with a mix of ski and gear shops and humble, 17th- and 18th-century homes, their typical, sgraffito-decorated stucco walls scratched with motifs like rosettes and mermaids. The opulent, neo-baroque Grand Restaurant with its white tablecloths and Swiss fine-dining is one of the highlights, as well as the historic Le Pavillon, where you can sip champagne while dining on oysters and cheese fondue on the sun terrace. While in Pontresina, stop by Gianottis for artisanal chocolate and Engadiner Nusstorte, a crunchy, Florentine biscuit–topped walnut cake.
At the gateway of the Swiss National Park, the intimate, seven-room Villa Flor in the village of S-chanf is a great base for cross-country skiing or adventuring on the surrounding trails. Designed to feel like you’re staying in a (very fashionable) friend’s home, owner and former gallerist Ladina Florineth’s century-old, art nouveau villa is filled with heirloom- and flea market-found décor that sits alongside art and in-house exhibitions curated with some of her friends and guests, like David Shrigley.
Where else to eat
In St. Moritz, the Kulm Country Club will quickly become your home base. Renovated and expanded by Norman Foster, the former Olympic Pavilion is now a modern mix of glass and wood with sports memorabilia like bobsleds hanging from the ceiling, black-and-white photos from Olympic competitions lining the walls, and a mountain-inspired cocktail menu with a heavy focus on gin. In winter, tasting-menu restaurant The K‚ a pop-up concept by three-Michelin-starred Mauro Colagreco of Mirazur in France (one of the world's best restaurants), takes over a chapel-like space in the Kulm, while members-only Gucci Lounge returns for its seasonal stint at slopeside Paradiso.
At Badrutt’s, Pizzeria Heuboden, housed in the old hayloft of former farmhouse Chesa Veglia, serves up what many claim to be the best pizza in St. Moritz (the stone oven-baked Dama Bianca, sprinkled with fresh Périgord black truffles and drizzled with truffle oil, is a stand-out). In the center of St. Moritz, La Scarpetta’s living room-like space holds a few wooden tables, with its signature fresh pasta drying on rods out the window.
Water activities, cycling, and hiking: The best things to do in the Engadin Valley
Carved with a network of nearly 360 miles of trails, Engadin’s hikes range from light strolls to summit climbs and long-distance, multi-day journeys. In the Upper Engadin, the Funicular Muottas Muragl—the first in the Engadin—climbs from Punt Muragl to the restaurant and sun terrace at Muottas Muragl, which shows off some of the best sunset views in the valley from its 8,000-foot-high perch. From here, you can set off on an easy, two-hour panorama trail (open from mid-June on) through pine forests, taking in views of the Bernina mountain range before ending at Alp Languard for the chairlift down to Pontresina.
For something more challenging, take a steeper hike from Muottas Muragl to the Segantini mountain hut, following the footsteps of the namesake Italian painter known for his pastoral portraits of the Alps. Or, take the short hike from Corvatsch’s Murtèl middle station to the Fuorcla Surlej mountain hut, climbing up hairpin bends before reaching sweeping views across Val Roseg and peaks like Piz Bernina, a four-thousander that’s the highest point in the Bernina Range. From Morteratsch’s railway station, the 50-minute glacier trail toward the Morteratsch Glacier—the third-longest in the Eastern Alps—is a lighter alternative to the nearly 6.5-mile loop along boulders and glacial lakes.
If cycling is more your speed, cruise on an electric mountain bike from St. Moritz to Maloja through the Upper Engadin lake district, past Crayola-colored row boats bobbing in Lake Sils and the flower-filled meadows of Val Fex (the journey is particularly scenic in the fall, when forests of golden larches frame the lakes). Head up to the 6,000-foot-high Maloja Pass to watch the serpent-shaped, low-lying Maloja Snake cloud winding its way through the peaks—a phenomenon captured in French film Clouds of Sils Maria with Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart.
From Davos, the highest town in Europe and the second-largest in Graubünden, take your pick of nearly 800 miles of bike trails, including the longest single trail in Switzerland, Alps Epic Trail Davos. Home to one of the oldest downhill skiing competitions in the world, the Parsenn Derby, Parsenn (reachable via funicular) is a favorite for both hiking and mountain biking, as well as other adrenaline-inducing activities, like paragliding. For those who want to get out on the water, kitesurf on Lake Silvaplana or raft along class 4 whitewater rapids through Giarsun Gorge, the best stretch for rafting in Switzerland.
Day trips in and around the Engadin Valley
The Rhaetian Railway connects towns throughout the Engadin like Davos and Sils, a former farming and fishing village of 750 residents that’s a quiet alternative to jetset St. Moritz. Nietzsche called it “the most charming village on Earth,” and it’s been a refuge for everyone from Albert Einstein to David Bowie.
Drive 45 minutes from Davos to Jenins and the landscape—and weather—changes entirely. “This is where people come if there’s still snow in spring in Engadin,” jokes Oliver Friedrich, half of the husband-wife duo behind Alter Torkel, a wine-focused restaurant and cellar with a popular terrace overlooking the vines in Jenins, near the thermal baths of Bad Ragaz. Nearly 70% of the vines here produce pinot noir, earning Graubünden’s small region of Bündner Herrschaft the nickname “the Burgundy of Switzerland.” “When I came here in 2008, only two wineries in the area were producing high-quality wines, but now there are 20 to 25,” says Friedrich, whose rustic eatery carries bottles from more than 75 winemakers. “The new generation is taking over, and they’ve been traveling and seeing different places—they’re thinking differently about their region. I think in the next five years, this area will explode [in terms of wine].”
A few minutes away, the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz revolves around a bathing and spa tradition that has been considered a source of vitality since the 13th century. Thermal water from nearby Tamina Gorge fills the opulent pools, which resemble the famous baths of Budapest. The only hotel in Europe with six Michelin stars, Grand Resort Bad Ragaz features an outpost of IGNIV by Andreas Caminada, Graubünden’s local celebrity chef. Caminada reins over the tiny, fortified town of Fürstenau (considered the world’s smallest city), about an hour from St. Moritz, where he runs a bakery producing bread for his restaurants; nine guest rooms scattered throughout two historic homes; casual, prix-fixe eatery Casa Caminada; garden-focused, vegetarian tasting-menu Restaurant Oz, where chef Timo Fritsche preps daily-changing dishes from the open kitchen; and the cornerstone, three-Michelin-starred Schloss Schauenstein.
About two hours from both St. Moritz and Davos, 7132 Hotel Vals is a romantic spot known for its thermal baths (which are candlelit for night bathing on the weekends), helicopter trips to remote glaciers, and fine-dining restaurant Silver, where the show extends from the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the mountains to the table-side performances (think: an à la minute orange sorbet palette cleanser). Of course, you could spend the entire day in the Peter Zumthor–designed thermal baths, where mineral water from the nearby St. Peter spring pours into six pools in the monolithic building, crafted from raw concrete and 60,000 slabs of Vals quartzite—which is also the star of the spa’s hot stone massages.
