Switzerland · Engadin
St Moritz
The resort that invented the winter holiday, still sending skeleton riders down natural ice and horses across a frozen lake, high in the Engadine sun.
St Moritz sits at 1,800 m on a shelf above its own lake, in the wide sunlit trough of the Upper Engadine, and it is where the winter holiday was invented: an 1864 wager brought summer guests back in the snow, and the town has traded on that ever since. It has hosted two Winter Olympics, still runs the Cresta Run and, when the ice holds, horse racing on the frozen lake. Come summer the lakes turn turquoise, the larch valleys open up and the same terraces serve hikers instead of skiers.
Suggested stay
3–7 days
Language
German, French, Italian
Currency
CHF
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love St Moritz
The light the Engadine is high and dry, so the valley gets an unusual amount of sun, and painters and photographers have chased its hard blue winter light here for generations.
The skiing Corviglia, Corvatsch and Diavolezza give wide sunny pistes to 3,303 m, a glacier descent to Morteratsch, and the last natural-ice bob and skeleton runs in the world.
Two resorts the winter machine shuts down and a quieter second season opens with turquoise lakes, larch forest and high trails that most winter visitors never see.
The show it is unapologetically expensive, and the mix of fur coats, rope-carrying mountaineers and Engadine farmers on one street is half the entertainment.
Best time to visit
Jul-Aug
17-18° days
46.498° N, 9.839° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Zurich
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Weather & when to go to St Moritz
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Jul-Aug
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid St Moritz
The valley is cold and dark from November through March, which is also the ski season, so the harshest months are the busiest ones. The real gap is between seasons: much of the town closes from mid-April to mid-June and again from late October into early December, when lifts stop, hotels shut and there is little reason to arrive.
Top things to do in St Moritz
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Corviglia and Piz Nair - the mountain above the village
snow scenic 👍 PopularA funicular leaves from the Dorf itself and climbs to Corviglia's wide south-facing pistes, with a cable car on to Piz Nair at 3,057 m. The World Cup downhill start below the summit drops away at a gradient that stops most people looking over the edge, and the sun is on the slope most of the day.
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Corvatsch - the cable car to 3,303 m
snow scenic 👍 PopularFrom Surlej across the lake, a two-stage cable car climbs to the highest lift-served point in the Engadine, with the Bernina glaciers laid out opposite. The Hahnensee run drops off the back all the way down to St Moritz Bad, and one evening a week the mountain lights a long floodlit descent.
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Diavolezza - face to face with Piz Palue
snow scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedThe cable car off the Bernina road puts you at 2,978 m opposite the Bernina massif: fluted ice faces, Piz Bernina behind them, and the Pers and Morteratsch glaciers running down between. In spring, guided parties ski the glacier route from the top station out to Morteratsch station on the valley floor.
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Muottas Muragl - the postcard view down the Engadine lakes
scenic hiking ⭐ Highly recommendedA funicular hauls up from Punt Muragl to a terrace at 2,456 m and the whole chain of lakes lines up below, running away towards the Maloja pass. From there the Panoramaweg contours round to Alp Languard above Pontresina, a couple of easy hours with the view on your right the whole way.
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Rhaetian Railway Bernina line - the UNESCO climb over the pass
scenic history 👍 PopularNarrow-gauge trains leave St Moritz and climb to 2,253 m at Ospizio Bernina without a rack, on adhesion alone, which is a large part of why the line is World Heritage listed. Even a short hop up to Alp Grum for lunch and back gives you the glaciers, the summit lakes and the switchbacks.
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The Cresta Run and the Olympic Bob Run - natural ice, rebuilt every winter
adventure historyTwo ice gullies run down towards Celerina, hand-built from snow and water each December and melted away each spring. The Cresta is ridden head-first on a skeleton toboggan and dates to 1885; the bob run, from 1904, is the last natural-ice bobsleigh track in the world and carried the 1928 and 1948 Olympic events.
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The frozen lake - racing and polo on the ice
adventure culture artsIn deep winter the lake below the village freezes hard enough to carry grandstands, and horses have raced on it since 1907, with polo alongside. It is the strangest sight in the valley: a crowd in fur standing on a lake. All of it depends on the ice being judged thick enough, and warm winters have cancelled it before.
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Cross-country trails across the lakes - the Engadine's other winter
snowAround two hundred kilometres of groomed track link the valley from Maloja down to Zuoz, much of it laid straight across the frozen lakes. It is classic Swiss Langlauf terrain, flat, high and sunlit, and every March Europe's biggest cross-country race runs much of the same route.
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Morteratsch glacier trail - posts marking where the ice used to be
hiking nature wildlifeA flat, easy walk from Morteratsch station up the moraine towards the glacier snout, with markers showing the year the ice reached each point. The distance between the post for 1900 and the ice today is the clearest lesson in glacier retreat anywhere in the Alps, and takes about an hour to walk.
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Segantini Museum - the Alpine triptych
culture arts historyA small stone rotunda above the village, built to hold Giovanni Segantini's unfinished triptych of life, nature and death, painted in Engadine light with his divisionist strokes. He died in 1899 in a hut high on the Schafberg while still working on it, which the room rather makes you feel.
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St Moritz Bad - the springs that named the town
wellness historyThe lower quarter by the lake is where the iron-rich springs surface, used since the Bronze Age and written up by Paracelsus in the sixteenth century. It is the plainer half of St Moritz, with the spa, the cross-country trails, the lake path and a small museum at the spring itself.
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Lake Silvaplana - the Maloja wind
windsports adventureMost summer afternoons a reliable thermal wind funnels up the valley from the Maloja pass and turns the lake into one of Europe's best-known windsurf and kite waters, with schools on the shore at Silvaplana. It arrives around midday and blows hard until evening, which makes planning a day around it easy.
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Via Serlas - the shop windows of the Dorf
shoppingThe short arcaded run of shops below the church is about as concentrated a luxury strip as the Alps has, and window-shopping it is a legitimate way to spend an hour whether or not you go in. The people-watching on the terraces around it is the real attraction.
Best areas to stay in St Moritz
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
St Moritz Dorf
First-time visitors $$$Terraced luxury above the lake
Explore hotels in St Moritz Dorf →
St Moritz Bad
Value and spa $$Flat lakeside spa quarter
Explore hotels in St Moritz Bad →
Celerina
Quiet ski base $$Quiet Engadine village downhill
Explore hotels in Celerina →
Pontresina
Mountains and families $$Larch-forest mountaineering base
Explore hotels in Pontresina →
Sils Maria and Silvaplana
Lakes and silence $$Still up-valley lake villages
Explore hotels in Sils Maria and Silvaplana →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on St Moritz
Getting to & around St Moritz
Getting there
There is no scheduled airport in the valley: Engadin Airport at Samedan handles private flights only. Almost everyone arrives by train or car. Zurich is the usual gateway, with a change at Chur onto the Rhaetian Railway's Albula line, and drivers cross the Julier Pass, which is kept open through the winter.
Train
St Moritz station, at the top of the lake
The Rhaetian Railway climbs from Chur on narrow gauge through the Albula tunnel, past the Landwasser Viaduct and the spiral tunnels above Bergun. From Zurich it is one change at Chur and roughly three and a half hours in all. St Moritz is also the eastern end of the Glacier Express from Zermatt, about eight hours away and a day out rather than a transfer.
Train
St Moritz station, via the Bernina Pass
From Italy the Bernina line climbs from Tirano over a 2,253 m pass on adhesion alone, the highest transalpine crossing of its kind. Combined with a train up from Milan it is the classic slow approach from the south, and the Albula and Bernina stretches together are UNESCO listed.
Coach
Post bus terminal at St Moritz station
Postbuses cross the Maloja Pass down to Chiavenna in Italy, and the Palm Express runs through to Lugano and the Italian lakes over the summer. Slower than the train, and a far better view of the pass hairpins.
Drive
St Moritz
The Julier Pass from Tiefencastel is the year-round road in and is cleared through the winter. The Albula, Bernina, Ofen and Maloja crossings can shut in heavy snow. Winter tyres are the norm and chains are worth carrying for the pass.
Flight
Zurich or Milan airports, then train or car
Zurich is the usual gateway, roughly 200 km off and about three and a half hours by train with a change at Chur; Milan is a similar distance from the south. Neither is a transfer, so treat the last leg as part of the trip and pick the airport by what you want to see either side.
Getting around
Walking
The Dorf and Bad are each compact, but a hundred metres of height and a lake shore separate them, so the two are a real walk apart rather than one town.
Free
Local bus
Engadin Bus links the Dorf, Bad, Celerina, Pontresina and the up-valley lake villages through the day, and connects with the cable car bases.
TBC
Train
Rhaetian Railway trains run the valley floor between St Moritz, Celerina, Samedan, Pontresina and Zuoz about hourly, and beat driving in snow.
TBC
Funiculars and cable cars
The Corviglia funicular starts inside the Dorf; cable cars climb from Surlej, Punt Muragl, Pontresina and the Bernina road.
TBC
Taxi
Taxis wait at the station and outside the larger hotels, and matter most late at night, when the buses stop early by city standards.
TBC
Car
Useful for the Bregaglia and the passes, awkward in the village: parking is mostly underground and the Dorf's lanes are tight and one-way.
TBC
Day trips from St Moritz
Bernina Express to Tirano
Full dayUNESCO alpine railway
The line climbs past Morteratsch and the Diavolezza glaciers to Ospizio Bernina at 2,253 m, then drops through Alp Grum and the Brusio spiral viaduct into Italian-speaking Valtellina. No rack, no cog, just adhesion, which is why it is World Heritage listed. Tirano at the bottom is a pleasant wait for the train back.
Getting there
train
About 2.5 hours each way by train
Sils Maria and Val Fex
Half dayLakeside literary village
The quietest of the Upper Engadine villages, where Nietzsche spent seven summers in a small room now kept as a museum. The Chaste peninsula walk juts out into Lake Sils, and horse-drawn carriages run up the car-free Val Fex to a frescoed chapel and a hotel at the end of the road.
Getting there
bus | walk
20 min by bus up the valley
Val Roseg from Pontresina
Half dayGlacier valley walk
A flat, larch-lined valley running up to a milky glacier lake under Piz Roseg, about two hours each way on foot or ridden in a horse-drawn carriage. Cross-country trails take it over in winter. One of the easiest ways in the Alps to get properly among big mountains without climbing.
Getting there
train | walk
15 min by train to Pontresina, then walk or horse carriage
Swiss National Park at Zernez
Full dayStrict nature reserve
Switzerland's only national park and one of the strictest in Europe: no camping, no fires, no dogs and no stepping off the marked paths. Ibex, chamois, marmots and reintroduced bearded vultures. The visitor centre at Zernez explains a century of deliberately leaving a valley alone.
Getting there
train | bus | car
About 1 hour by train or car down the valley
Soglio and the Bregaglia
Full dayChestnut-forest valley
The road falls off the Maloja Pass in tight hairpins into a warmer Italian-speaking valley of stone villages and chestnut woods. Soglio hangs on a terrace opposite the Sciora spires, and the Giacometti family came from Stampa just below. A different climate an hour from the snow.
Getting there
car | bus
About 1 hour by car or postbus over the Maloja Pass
Guarda and the Lower Engadine
Full daySgraffito villages
Below Zernez the valley narrows and the villages get older. Guarda, Ftan and Ardez keep whitewashed houses scratched with sgraffito patterns and deep funnel doorways, and Scuol at the end has mineral baths fed by the same kind of springs that made St Moritz.
Getting there
train
About 1 hour by train down the valley
A little history of St Moritz
The valley's mineral springs were in use in the Bronze Age: a wooden casing built around one of them has been dated to roughly 1400 BC, which makes it one of the oldest known spa works in Europe. Paracelsus wrote up the waters in the sixteenth century, and by the nineteenth St Moritz Bad was a proper summer cure resort whose guests went home before the snow came.
Winter was the invention. In 1864 the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet four English summer guests that they would find the Engadine sunny and pleasant in winter, and offered to cover their journey if not. They stayed until Easter and told everyone. Within a generation the town had electric light, a funicular, a bobsleigh run and the Cresta Run, and almost everything now attached to the name dates from that stretch, including two Winter Olympics. It has been selling the same idea ever since.
A wooden casing is built around the iron-rich spring at what is now St Moritz Bad.
Paracelsus writes up the springs, spreading their reputation across the Alps.
Johannes Badrutt wagers four English guests that the Engadine winter is worth staying for, and wins.
Electric light is switched on in a St Moritz hotel dining room, among the first in Switzerland.
The Cresta Run is cut from the village down to Celerina; the head-first skeleton position follows.
The St Moritz to Celerina bob run is built, and is still rebuilt from snow and water every winter.
Horses race on the frozen lake for the first time.
St Moritz hosts the second Winter Olympics, and hosts them again in 1948.
The Rhaetian Railway's Albula and Bernina lines are inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / J
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+41
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about St Moritz
▸ When is the best time to visit St Moritz?
It depends what you came for. July and August are the pick for general comfort: warm days, turquoise lakes and every trail open. January to March is cold and dark, and it is also when the skiing and the frozen lake are at their best. Early October brings gold larch and few people. The gaps to avoid are late spring and late autumn, when much of the town is shut.
▸ How long do you need in St Moritz?
Three days covers the village, one big mountain and a run on the Bernina line. A ski week is the traditional stay and the lift network justifies it. A summer week fills easily with the four lakes, Val Roseg, Val Fex and the Bernina valley, and still leaves things undone.
▸ Is St Moritz as expensive as people say?
In the Dorf, yes, and it makes no apology for it. Staying in St Moritz Bad, Celerina, Pontresina or the up-valley villages is noticeably easier on the wallet for the same lifts, the same trails and the same views, and the valley buses and trains connect all of them.
▸ Do you need a car?
No. Trains run the valley floor about hourly, buses link the villages and the lift bases, and hotel guest cards usually cover local transport. A car helps for the Bregaglia, the passes and the Lower Engadine, but in the village itself it is mostly a parking problem.
▸ Is there anything to do in summer?
A great deal, and summer is the season the weather actually favours. Hundreds of kilometres of marked trails, the lake chain for sailing and windsurfing, glacier walks from Morteratsch, high funiculars for anyone who would rather not climb, and a town that is quieter and much less formal than in February.
▸ Can you ride the Cresta Run?
Sometimes, and not casually. It belongs to a private club, runs only in winter, and riding means booking through the club, sitting through their beginners' briefing and accepting real risk on head-first natural ice. Watching from the outrun at Celerina is free and tells you most of what you need to know.
▸ St Moritz or Pontresina?
St Moritz for the lake, the shops and a funicular from the doorstep. Pontresina for larch forest, the Bernina glaciers, Val Roseg and a calmer village that still has real mountain life. They are about fifteen minutes apart by train, so the choice is about evenings rather than access.
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