The lovely resort town of St. Moritz, Switzerland, gets more affordable once the snow melts.
ST. MORITZ, 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 offseason, and I’ve come here grateful that once the snow melts, the area becomes reasonably affordable. I want to 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. 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.
Rena and Edith Maller, old friends and local professional hiking guides, greet me. As a warm-up hike, we amble up Alp Muntatsch through evergreens furred with bearded lichen. They tell me how local ant species absorb sun and radiate heat back into the colony, point out that gentians shut their petals in cold rain, and teach me to recognize the short, keen whistles of marmots. We climb above the timberline, skirting lime-green fields. Sharp, white Alps rise and fall like the electrocardiogram of a massive heartbeat.
Below us, the Upper Engadin is traversed by the opalescent Inn River, fed by the waterfalls and glaciers of the eastern Alps. The riverbanks are dotted with well-maintained and pretty historical towns. Lakes gleam indigo at the base of intensely teal mountains, their peaks brightly snow-capped. Approximately at mid-center, curving around its own famed lake, St. Moritz sits pretty.
St. Moritz is divided into two neighborhoods: the luxurious upper St. Moritz Dorf and the generally more-affordable, lake-level St. Moritz Bad (which is not a description, but the German word for baths, a reference to the mineral springs). I direct myself to St. Moritz Bad. I set a nightly price cap of $150 for lodging, and budget $50 a day for food and other expenses.
Most Airbnbs require a week-long stay, but because I was arriving early in summer I had been able to reserve a four-night stay in a small, one-bedroom apartment for $111 a night.
Sven, my calm and punctual host, shows me the ropes, providing information and advice, eventually directing me to the Coop supermarket. By making my own breakfast, packing a lunch (sandwich, chocolate bar and water) on hikes and cooking dinner, meals average around $25 a day. A bottle of wine starts at $5.
This is terrific. It would be even better if there were two of us to share the room rate. Also, it would be nice to have WiFi, but I don’t; I neglected to check that fine print. And I was careless about the one-time fee for linens and cleaning, which adds $130 whether I stay one night or 10. Nonetheless, I love that it’s all mine, private and homey, with a million-dollar balcony view at no extra charge.