My father maybe joining me for a week-long ski trip to St Moritz next February. He is not a skier so I have to find some activities for him to entertain himself during the day when my brother and I are out tearing up the ski slopes!

Could someone advise any day-excursions from St Moritz he maybe able to undertake on his own. I have looked into the Bernina Express but it seems too long a train ride to call it a day-trip. Any other suggestions are welcomed.

Many thx!

s

He can visit lovely Pontresina by bus or train. It is near St.Moritz but more traditional.A real gem.

Hi swagman,

The Bernina Express is an excellent day-trip, I think. Just go as far as Poschiavo, and that's about two hours I think. Poschiavo is a delightful little town with Italian flavor, cafes, etc., set in a lush valley. It's a great trip over the Bernina Pass.

Other places to see --

Soglio

Guarda

I've been to both, but I don't really remember the details well enough to describe them. Hopefully some regulars will be along with all the details!! But they are really gorgeous.

Also, there is a horse-carriage ride into the Fex Valley, but I've never done this.

s

ps,

Here is a link to some ideas (including Fex Valley & Soglio) from Ingo's travel pages:

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4166c/a88f9/4/

We are just back from six days in Sils-Maria and three in Guarda. Some hotels in Sils-Maria, and I suspect St. Moritz, give you a travel card if you stay two or more days, that gives you free bus transport and free rides on the mountaintop excursions. That card saves you a fortune, and opens a wealth of sites you can visit. We don't ski, but rode many cable cars to enjoy the view. On many of these trips, our bus went through St. Moritz, so we saw a lot of the sights there. I hate to pick a favorite excursion; they were all nice. I think the card does not extend to Guarda or Scuol, but most of the sites we saw were near St. Moritz, or to the west.

I'm finishing a travel report I will post soon, with a lot of what we did.

For a totally amazing village, day-trip to Soglio. I actually spent the night, but a few hours will give you an idea about this ancient village. It feels like you have stepped backwards in time. It is a great place to "find yourself" or just get away from the world. I was there in September and will return next September.

The Bernina Pass railway swandav mentions IMO is the most dramatically scenic rail line in Switzerland and is an easy excursion from St Moritz - it's just barely an hour or so from St Moritz/Pontresina to the summit and a Top of the World drama of glaciers and an Alpine lake you can walk around - and get to the glacier. Anyway a wonderful wonderful train ride - trains go hourly or so - some are labeled the official Bernina Express but the regular hourly trains obviously have the same scenery if not the domed observation cars on the official Bernina Express -www.swisstravelsystem.com i think has a link to the Bernina Express rail line and you will find details on it at: http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id3.html (look for the box Switzerland to Milan...") - anyway a totally unforgettable experience - in summer some trains even have open-air flat bed cars so you feel like you are levitating thru the high Alps. If you are driving a highway parallels the rail line. For folks going onto Switzerland this is a novel way to go - where the Bernina train line ends at Tirano, Italy you hop Italian trains to Lake Como (Bellagio) or Milan.

I took the official Bernina Express in September, and I would like to suggest to check out 1st class seating. I was in second class and the seating is small. I was seated in a 4-seating arrangement-2 facing 2. The people across from me were large, not as in obese, but tall and big. I had no leg room. I will go for 1st class next time.

I think there may be Observation/Panoramic cars mainly in 1st class as well

And engineering a railway in such tortuous terrain around 1900 was such an incredible feat of railway engineering, what with the spiral loops, tunnels, etc. that UNESCO has named it a World Heritage Site (as well as the Albula section south of St Moritz that you'd take to get to St Moritz by rail from say Zurich/Lucerne/Chur/Glacier Express route

Informations about Bernina railway
Information about famous Bernina railway, travel to switzerland Valposchiavo.
www.bernina-sud.info/En/bernina.html

Bernina Express - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bernina Railway built the line from 1908-1910 and operated independently until the 1940s. The Bernina Express uses gradients of 7% to achieve a ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernina_Express - Cached - Similar

Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes - UNESCO World ...
Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes, brings together two historic railway lines that cross the Swiss Alps through two passes. ...
whc.unesco.org/en/list/1276

clevelandbrown, I am looking forward to your trip report. Cannot wait! However, these 'cards' for free travel on buses/trains etc. are only offered in summer - not in winter.

I suggest your dad buys a regional pass for canton Graubünden. The Bernina Express to Poschiavo is a *must* for him. So are the excurions (by horse-drawn carriage?) to the Fex Valley and/or Roseg Valley. Soglio is another idea but I am not so sure about this in February - I haven't been there in winter because it is pretty much shut down then. Only very few people are visiting in winter and even less live there.

There are several nice churches (Pontresina, Silvaplana, Samedan) that are worth to see, strolling through the beautiful villages is nice, and there are plenty of events going on in the area: like horse races, polo and a gourmet festival on the lake of St. Moritz. Bob races in St. Moritz. Oh, and then there are museums in the area: Nietzsche museum in Sils, Engadin museum, Segantini museum in St. Moritz, Alpine museum in Pontresina. And your dad could probably just take cable cars up to the skiing area, walk on the trails there a bit, lounge on the sun decks of the many restaurants and you and your brother can show up from time to time and have a hot chocolate or so with him. That's what I did when I was there with my parents.

Ingo

Hi Everyone

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and the wealth of information.

I have decided to take a day off skiing to accompany my father on the Bernina Express, from St Moritz to Poschiavo. On this route, is there any particular town(s) that's worth a stop along the way? I assume that given the train runs every hour, we can hop off to see a town for an hour and hop back on the next train?

Ingo, the excursions to Fex Valley and/or Roseg Valley, is that from St Moritz centre?

Another question I have is that I will be taking the train from Zurich Flughafen to St Moritz, is it advisable to pre-purchase return tickets now or just get it on arrival?

Many thanks once again!

s

Just buy them on arrival though on sbb.ch there at times have discounts or day passes that can be attractive - scour sbb.ch but for regular price tickets just wait and buy them at the airport train station - there will be NO problem getting on trains - there is the official Bernina Express that requires reservations and costs more because of that and there are hourly local trains running the same route - you can usually get off and on with these tickets but only on the regional trains - not the official Bernina Express train - i'd get off at Alp Grum, near the summit and drink up the top of the world scenery and if up to it stroll around a bit. there is the ubiqutious mountain hotel/restaurant at either this station or Bernina Ospiz (or both - two stations a short distance apart. Many folks walk between the stations in summer but in winter i am not sure about that.

Pal answered the train questions I think.

There is no town between St. Moritz and Poschiavo that's worth to stop and explore. Poschiavo itself will keep you guys busy for two hours I guess - and a nice lunch. Getting off the train would make sense at Diavolezza where a cable car takes you up to the mountain - gorgeous views. But you can do that as skiing day and your father could accompany you.

The horse-drawn carriages to Roseg Valley leave from Pontresina train station, those to Fex Valley from Sils-Maria, bus stop 'Post', then a 2-minutes walk along the street to the tiny main square. The latter is my favourite.

I.