trippster

Hi All,

Am back with a new question, What are the recommedations out here for a decent affordable hotel in St Moritz?

We are searching for something between 15th July and 18th July 2007 and all hotels seem to either be taken or are too expensive!!!
Our budget is something in the Euro 80 - 140 range per day for a double room.

Alternatively is there any other smaller base I should look for in the same region. Our plan is to arrive from Zermatt on Glacier Express. And of the three days in this region, we definitely plan to do Bernina Express one day and explore places like Sils on the other day. Any suggestion for a different smaller base and / or hotel recommendations in these areas.

Am getting real desperate! Pls help!


Trippster

pja1

Hey trippster,
The only place I can recommend in St. Moritz is Hotel Hauser.
www.hotelhauser.ch

paul

Ingo

Samedan is a nice small town and good transportation hub, only two train stops from St. Moritz.

Try www.samedan-hirschen.ch for example.
Or www.central-samedan.ch
The latter with rates well in your budget.

trippster

thanks for your replies, pja1 and ingo!

had seen hotel hauser in some other post ... and it was not available for the dates as well as being beyond our budget!

ingo, i tried checking out central-samedan's site... it seems to be only in german. is there no english translation. the little bit of german i learnt in college is just not sufficient to decode the page i see good comments in other posts too abt the place. so am real keen to check it out. have sent an email enquiry. shall see if i get a reply. thanks anyway for the pointer.

am enjoying planning out various aspects of the trip

i seem to be finding it difficult to check railway time tables on www.sbb.ch. when i type any city name in it, the website asks me to refine my request and gives me a long list of options to choose from. For eg when i typed "St Moritz" the list i got included options like St Moritz (Station / Shop), St Moritz SMBB, St Moritz Somplaz etc etc. What should I choose?

thanks again for all the suggestions i get frm all u fodorites!
- Trippster

trippster

topping for other suggestions in the same area ...

Ingo, both the places at Samedan havent yet replied. Any other town / hotel suggestions in around the same place. Our only idea was to do the GE and Bernina Express. And hang around the area ...


Thanks & Rgds
- Trippster

Ingo

Too bad they have not replied yet. Samedan is not yet discovered by the English-speaking folks, mostly German/Italian guests, that's why the website is not in English.

Another place I can recommend (but not from personal experience, sorry) is Chesa Nick in Celerina, a B&B in a charming village between Samedan and St. Moritz. It's a typical old house, the rooms are quite small but cosy.

Another option - I stayed there this winter - is Hotel Engadinerhof in Pontresina. www.engadinerhof.ch (English version available). Rooms category C and better are renovated and highly recommended. Public transportation is included in the room rates - a steal. My trip report is somewhere here.

trippster

Thanks. Shall check it out.

Was just wondering whether I should have added "Celerina / Sils / Silvaplana/ Pontersina" when i mentioned other small towns in the prev query.

How do I get to these towns from St Moritz? Or from Glacier Express (since I'll be on it from Zermatt)

And ofcourse I have seen your report of the area. I think by now I have gone through many of your comments / reports!!

Thanks again!
- Trippster

Ingo

The Glacier Express stops in Celerina. Change in Samedan for Pontresina.

Bus and trains take you everywhere in the Engadine. Usually it's only a few minutes you have to wait for a connection.

Suelynne

Dear Trippster,
You wrote:
i seem to be finding it difficult to check railway time tables on www.sbb.ch. when i type any city name in it, the website asks me to refine my request and gives me a long list of options to choose from. For eg when i typed "St Moritz" the list i got included options like St Moritz (Station / Shop), St Moritz SMBB, St Moritz Somplaz etc etc. What should I choose?

From my experience of travelling by train throughout Switzerland, I'm confident that the first one [station/stop] offered is going to be the station you arrive or leave from. Sometimes you are offered 'bahnhoff', which means 'train station' but seems to indicate a bus-stop at the station, because if you click on the details it always seems to take a minute [or more] to get there from the train. Likewise, by clicking on details you can work out which destinations are bus-stops beyond the station. Of course, in big places like Zurich there will be many of these. I didn't know what the 'SMBB' in the St Moritz list was, but by clicking on details I learnt that it takes 15 minutes to walk from there to the station, and there's no bus!
I hope that helps - I'm sorry I'm no help with accommodation in the St Moritz area.

mjnbrown

I would recommend Pontresina - I stayed there last year and really enjoyed a fairly quiet little town. It is just a 10-15 train ride to St. Moritz. It is also on the route of the Bernina Express train ride.
Martha

trippster

Suelynne, Martha - thanks for ur inputs ... i am now able to figure sbb.com a little better ...

ingo - both engadinerhof and chesa nick have availability. former has only Class A room unrenovated ones! so now we are in a dilemma. which one should we take? pls help us out once more

rgds,
trippster

Ingo

I would not go for the Category A room in the Engadinerhof. That means bathroom down the hall if I recall correctly. Not my cup of tea!

Thus ... it should be Chesa Nick.

trippster

Ingo - Thanks a ton for pointing out. I had forgotten that the bathroom is not in the room!!! Def can't handle common bathrooms! Chesa Nick it is then!

What is the most scenic part of the GE and Bernina Express? By getting down in Celerina, we are not missing anything between Celerina and St Moritz, right?

In some earlier posts, I got recommendations to not do the Bernina Express route all the way to Tirano. But do it till Poschiavo or Alp Grum. Is that right?

Thanks!
- T

marigross

Last year I followed Ingo's advice and stayed in Samedan....LOVED it! The Central does have an English website that you can reach through different engines. I'll try to find it and post the link.

However, they do not speak English in the hotel. They wait until a nephew comes once a week and translates all the emails for them.

We stayed in an apartment that was really nice and confortable. The price was great. The bus stop is just in front of the hotel.

Ingo

(Hi marigross! Now we know why they always respond with a delay to English emails, thanks.)

Celerina is only four miles or so from St. Moritz - nothing spectacular to see on this short leg. The most spectacular scenery on the GE is IMO between Andermatt and Sedrun (going over the Oberalp Pass), then between Ilanz and Reichenau in the Ruinaulta gorge and finally between Thusis and Preda - the Albula valley with many bridges and spiral tunnels.

Especially if you're only for a short time in the area I don't recommend to take the Bernina Express all the way down to Tirano. Get off the train in Poschiavo, wander around the cobbled alleys of the nice small town, have lunch there and then return. One other option is to take the train to Le Prese or Miralago (a few stops beyond Poschiavo) and have lunch there at a restaurant by the lake in either place.