Pondering Pontresina

The second half of the week in Switzerland was based in Pontresina, in the Bernina Valley and just a few miles from St. Moritz. See the full album.

We started the week arriving by train in the morning and going to our hotel, the Grand Kronenhof. It's one of those very old, high end European hotels with clinking china, amazing workmanship and floors that creak with age. Staying there was definitely a splurge by Catherine's parents.

We arrived too early to check into our rooms, so we changed into hiking clothes and stored our bags. Then, we took the hotel shuttle to the Punt Muragl funicular. The funicular starts its trip going through a forest, then it comes around a corner and pops out of the tree line before arriving at the restaurant and hotel at the top. We had a quick lunch at the restaurant where I had the Grisons soup. It's a soup served all over the valley in the mountain huts made of barley, sausage and a little cream. It's great fuel for a hike! Everybody else had rosti, which is shaved potatoes that are fried almost exactly like hashbrowns. They are then topped with cheese, or a sausage.

Our hike for the day went along the ridge back towards Pontresina. In the first half, we hiked up 300m to a hut and had some glugwine. Then, we continued along the cliff slowly making our way down to the Pontresina chairlift. Some sections on the way down were a little tricky and included cables on one side and a nice long fall on the other. Along the entire hike, we were graced with spectacular views of St. Moritz on its lake and two glacial valleys visible across the Bernina. As we hiked, the clouds came in and out across the mountains creating incredible lighting to see the scenery. Along the chairlift on the way down, we were treated to a series of wooden carvings of animals in the area. It wasn't a long hike, but it was definitely had a high reward to effort ratio.

For dinner on our first night, we dressed up and went to the main dining room at the hotel. It is very old school with jackets required, more silverware than you know what to do with, and the courses are presented under silver lids that are lifted by the waiters in a choreographed dance. The food itself was traditional french and thus high on technique. It was good but we had better meals on our trip. At the end of the meal, we ordered some mint tea, which caused the wait staff some consternation on how to serve it. They decided to serve each portion with a pot with the leaves in it along with a small silver pitcher of hot water. Of course, since everything was silver, they had to include little cloth covers for the handles so that you don't burn your hands. I learned that the little pitcher of water is for cutting your tea. After a while, the tea steeping in the pot will get really strong, so when you are pouring later cups, you can cut it with fresh water. This makes sense for black tea, but not so much for mint, which caused the debate by the wait staff. Of course, we learned this from Bob and Susan after Catherine and Margaret just used the pitcher to refill the pot to get more tea.

They next day we took a bus to the Sils tram on the other side of St. Moritz to do our hike. Catherine decided to sit this one out and meet us for lunch instead at the top of the Silvaplana tram. The hike started at the top of the tram and followed a path that walked by a number of cute alpine lakes. We took a little accidental detour and climbed up to the top of a chair lift instead of cutting across the side of the hill. That ended up being frustrating because we could see the tram stop that was our destination at about the same elevation, but we had to walk down and then back up. That final upward slope was exhausting! It was going up the ski path, so it was fairly steep and consistent. We ended up spreading out a lot and being at the front, I got to see a number of marmots so I got some pictures. When we got to the top, Catherine was waiting there patiently and we instantly ordered some food so that it would be there when everybody else stumbled in. The food was not very good, but at that moment, it didn't really matter.

After lunch, we took the tram down the hill and the bus back to the hotel. After stretching out, we went to the hotel's spa. It was smaller than the one is Scoul, but just as ridiculous. The main pool ended in these ginormous glass windows that looked out on the mountains. The jacuzzi pool also had various water massage stations that you could use to loosen up specific muscles, or, you could just lay down on these metal chairs and have bubbles come up under you, turning your whole body into jelly. They had two steam rooms, one with eucalyptus oil in the air and the other with saltwater. Both were great for my mild sore throat. The spa also had a relaxation pool which was mostly in the dark and had soothing patterns projected on the ceiling. The pool itself was circular and there were a number of stations around the circle. At each station, you lie with your head at the outside of the circle on a stone bench and then put your feet on a metal tree so that you are lying on your back almost floating. Your head is just partially underwater so that your ears are and they have soothing music playing through the water. I don't float that well so it wasn't as relaxing as it could be, but it was still pretty wild setup.

For dinner that night, we went to the restaurant in the hotel steinbock. It served traditional mountain food and is known as having the best rosti in the area. The rosti is huge! Each plate is a full cheft's skillet and about an inch thick, crisped to perfection. For my main, I had a venison ragu with chestnut spaetzle that was spectacular.

Friday started out as a cloudy, slightly rainy day so we spent the morning lounging around the hotel. In the afternoon, Margaret,Tom, Ginny and I tried to get raclette but it's a dish primarily served in the French part of Switzerland. There is one restaurant in Pontresina that serves it, but they weren't open for lunch and were completely booked at dinner so we couldn't even pop in in the evening for an appetizer. I guess I'll have to go to the French side on some other trip.

After missing out on raclette, Catherine, Bob and I did a short afternoon hike. We took the chairlift up and then walked up a valley full of hundreds of marmots to the closest hut. The hut was run by a very friendly Swiss woman who bakes a cake or two every night and carries them up to the hut to sell each day. Today was a carrot cake that was a lot lighter than American carrot cakes. It was almost a corn/carrot cake, which is a combination we should definitely try.

The large furrow shows how the glacier is a
small fraction of its old size.

Friday dinner was at a pizza, burger and pasta place near the train station. They had a very large menu including a lot of game meats so I ordered some roe deer in a juniper sauce, while others had pasta, pizza and burgers. 

Saturday was our last day for hiking in Switzerland. It was a crystal clear blue sky day and our hike started out by taking a horse drawn carriage up the Roseg valley to the hotel/restaurant at the trailhead. We had a quick coffee stop and then started our hike up the valley. Catherine and Susan did a more mellow hike that stayed along the valley floor to an alpine lake at the base of the glacier while the rest of us hiked up the ridge for 1000m to the Surlej mountain hut before cutting across to the Silvaplana tram. The Roseg valley is pretty spectacular. It comes out of the confluence of two separate glaciers. You can see how much the glaciers have receded because the old glaciers' extents can be seen as gigantic scree furrows down the mountain side. Very clear evidence of a changing climate.

For dinner on our last night, we had probably the best meal in Switzerland. It was at the Krostenbuli restaurant as part of the hotel. Their food is primarily local dishes but done with a modern presentation and bold flavours. I started with an ossobuco ravioli, had a main of artic char with a cognac sauce and then a desert of passion fruit panna cotta with pineapple and coconut. We also drank some really interesting local white wine and then cleared them out of red wine from the winery in Lebanon that Margaret visited when she was there for her friend's wedding. It was a great way to end the first phase of the trip.