Off season
Posh St. Moritz, Switzerland, is an affordable delight in summertime.
ST. MORTIZ, Switzerland — I was fortunate to grow up skiing the Alps when doing so didn’t break the bank. In the 1980s, my family acquired a condominium in Switzerland’s Upper Engadin valley, home of St. Moritz, the crown jewel of resorts.
Here, in 1864, the enterprising hotelier Johannes Badrutt introduced skeptical Europeans to the radical concept of winter tourism.
Which is how one can forget that St. Moritz originally attracted visitors as a summer resort with curative mineral springs. Summer now is the off-season, and I’ve come here grateful that once the snow melts, the area becomes reasonably affordable. I want to hike and hike — that’s free — but the Upper Engadin also offers mountain biking, sailing, kite surfing, spa treatments, equestrian competitions, gourmet festivals and cultural arts programming.
I have come prepared to keep my costs down. I’ve scoured websites, planned a budget. Yet I am able to fully decipher St. Moritz’s creative discounts only after days of frugality. Here, more than any other place I’ve been, attention to the fine print on a hotel or rental agreement reveals the value difference between the bottom dollar and the best deal.
At the Zurich airport, I purchase a Swiss Half Fare Card, valid for a month on many state and local trains and buses. Both the panoramic Glacier and Bernina Express train routes, designated by UNESCO as World Heritage sites, stop in St. Moritz. Discounted, my round-trip ticket to St. Moritz costs $203. (Note: Swiss trains leave on the dot.) Once I’m there, I learn quickly that the superb infrastructure of these trains and buses conveys me easily to many starting points in the valley’s expansive reach of hiking trails.
René and Edith Müller, old friends