ALPINE GRANDEUR

Twin grande dame Swiss hotels in the Engadin region set the scene for a bucolic summer in the Alps, writes Fiona McCarthy.

In Upper Engadin valley in the southeastern Swiss Alps, everything revolves around the mountains, the lakes and the light. The landscape is never boring, the locals assert, due to the way the light plays in different shades – dancing from the quaint gabled chalet rooftops and across the tips of dense pine forests to the 4,000-metre mountain peaks, creating myriad moods in just one day.

Mountain magic

Taking the picturesque three-hour journey by rail from Zurich to the Engadin town of Samedan, I realise

I’m completely unprepared for the panoramic beauty of this vertiginous alpine wonderland. As our little red Rhaetian Railway train weaves its way up and over the spectacular Bernina Pass, through the staggering network of heritage-listed stone tunnels and along impossibly high viaducts, the view slopes dramatically from treetops to tiny towns tucked deep into valleys below, marked by the forest-green steeples of simple white churches. 02

In between are meadows, mesmerisingly carpeted with vibrant wildflowers, showing off in the summer sun before the next snowfall.

There is no better way to experience the Engadin’s magnificent landscape – and the generous hospitality of its people – than to stay at two of the area’s oldest and most prestigious hotel siblings – the 112-room Grand Hotel Kronenhof in Pontresina, and 164-room Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz.

I arrive first at the 174-year-old Kronenhof, set in a charming village with traditional houses marked by deep-set funnel-shaped windows – designed to enhance light but keep out the cold – and façades etched with pretty sgraffito.

Window boxes lining every sill are ablaze with colour, overflowing with petunias, geraniums and edelweiss.

The hotel’s lobby lounge is equally dazzling, intricate Belle Époque frescoes of birds and flowers dancing across the ceiling with a centuries-old kron (crown) chandelier hanging at its centre.

Through vast glass bay windows, backlit clouds skirt across pine-clad mountains and ancient glaciers – a natural theatre rivalled only by the grandeur of the hotel interior. Likewise, the Kulm Hotel – only a 10-minute drive from the Kronenhof – also boasts a million-dollar view, this time of the soothing, aquamarine waters of Lake St. Moritz and the surrounding Albula Alps.

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Winter dreams

Both the Kulm and Kronenhof offer all the understated glamour you’d expect from grande dame hotels. Originally run by the Gredig family as a small guesthouse – with a wine shop trading from its cellar – the Grand Hotel Kronenhof was transformed in the early 20th century into the neo-baroque beauty it is today. Likewise, the Kulm Hotel also started life as a 12-room pensione, founded by hotelier Johannes Badrutt in 1855.

Long before the Upper Engadin became a winter playground for rock stars and royals, it was a soughtafter summer destination for Europe’s holidaying elite, drawn to the area’s healing mineral springs.

Yet Badrutt saw its snowy potential, inviting British guests to come the following winter with the promise of warmth and conviviality in his frosty but blue-skied ‘paradise on earth’. If they didn’t like it, he said, he would reimburse their expenses.

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