Take the funicular from St. Moritz Dorf to Corviglia and the cable car on to Piz Nair at 3,057 metres, then ride the Muottas Muragl funicular for the valley’s best view of the lakes. Book a passenger run on the Olympia Bob Run, the only natural-ice bobsleigh track left anywhere, and give an afternoon to the Segantini Museum. In February the frozen lake carries horse racing, polo and a classic-car concours.
St. Moritz sits at 1,822 metres in the Upper Engadine, and it has been selling winter since 1864, when the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet his English summer guests they would like the valley in January. He won. The town now runs on four ski mountains, two Olympic Games and a lake that freezes hard enough to race horses on.
The funicular climbs out of St. Moritz Dorf to Corviglia at 2,486 metres, and a cable car carries on to the Piz Nair summit at 3,057 metres. Ride it on your first clear morning: the whole Upper Engadine lake chain reads at once from up there.
Built by hand from snow and water every winter since 1904, this is the oldest bobsleigh track still in use and the only natural-ice one left in the world. Nineteen curves over 1,722 metres, and guests can book a passenger seat behind a professional pilot.
At 1,768 metres the lake freezes solid enough to carry a racecourse. Late January and February bring polo, a classic-car concours and three Sundays of horse racing; the rest of the year it is a flat hour on foot with Piz Rosatsch reflected in it.
The funicular, running since 1907, lifts you from Punt Muragl to 2,456 metres in about ten minutes, and the terrace at the top holds the view most photographs of the Engadine are taken from. The Philosopher’s Path starts beside the station.
A domed stone rotunda built in 1908 for the work of one painter. Upstairs hangs Giovanni Segantini’s Alpine triptych, la vita, la natura, la morte, made for the Paris exhibition of 1900. Go for the triptych; the light in that room is the point.
The cable car out of Surlej ends at 3,303 metres, the highest lift station in Graubünden, on a shoulder of ice facing Piz Bernina. In winter it holds the valley’s longest descent; in summer the terrace is the easiest 3,000-metre view in the Engadine.
The Rhaetian Railway’s Bernina line has been UNESCO listed since 2008: the highest transalpine railway crossing, and one of the steepest adhesion railways anywhere, dropping to Tirano in Italy. Take the ordinary regional train and you keep the same view for a fraction of the Bernina Express fare.
Diavolezza tops out just under 3,000 metres opposite Piz Bernina, and its Glacier Experience Trail takes about two hours across ground the Pers and Morteratsch glaciers have given up. Down on the valley floor, sixteen boards mark where the ice stood, decade by decade.
Four indoor pools, an outdoor pool, three water slides and 1,620 square metres of spa on the edge of St. Moritz Bad. The name is Romansh for living, bubbling water, and this is the town’s honest answer to a day the cloud never lifts.
All that survives of the church of St. Mauritius, pulled down in 1893: a 33-metre tower leaning 5.5 degrees, which is further off vertical than Pisa. It stands on the slope above the lake, five minutes from the centre, and it costs nothing.
Sharing plates at two Michelin stars, inside Badrutt’s Palace.
Two stars under Reto Brändli, French technique at 1,800 metres.
A 17th-century farmhouse split into a grill, a tavern, a pizzeria and a fondue room.
From the Muottas Muragl top station along the ridge, with quotes posted at intervals.
The panorama traverse above Pontresina, with a chairlift down at the far end.
Two hours across the Pers and Morteratsch forelands, from the Diavolezza station.
Engadine house interiors moved room by room into one building.
The town’s own record of the two ice runs and the people who rode them.
Around 2,500 whiskies at the Waldhaus am See, and a Guinness record for it.
Jason Atherton’s winter-only room at Badrutt’s Palace, with DJs late.
The Kulm’s bar, tied to the Cresta riders who have drunk in it for a century.
Rental and workshop, with counters inside several of the hotels.
Nietzsche’s lodging house is open Tuesday to Sunday afternoons, closed Mondays.
Three days of high-goal polo played on the frozen lake, on snow rather than grass.
An international concours of elegance held out on the lake ice, conditions permitting.
Horse racing on the frozen lake across three Sundays, with family days on the Saturdays.
Children in red and blue ring cowbells through the villages to drive winter out.
42 km of cross-country skiing from Maloja to S-chanf, on the second Sunday of the month.
Three weeks of concerts, most of them in the 150-seat Dracula Club.
More than 100 British cars built up to 1980, on a regularity rally and a concours.
Guest chefs cook across the valley’s hotels. The festival moved to summer in 2026.
The practical way in, about 200 km north. Trains run via Chur and take a little over three and a half hours.
Samedan, 5 km north at 1,707 metres and among the highest airfields in Europe. Private, charter and training traffic only, no scheduled flights.
The Rhaetian Railway works the metre-gauge line in over the Albula pass and the Bernina line south to Tirano. Both are UNESCO listed.
Spätzle dough with dried meat, rolled in chard and baked under cheese.
Caramelised walnut tart in shortcrust, the canton’s export in a box.
A small air-dried pork sausage, eaten with bread and a pocket knife.
Grated potato fried slowly with flour, served with apple sauce and alpine cheese.
Short buckwheat dumplings, served with leek, bacon and sage.
Air-dried beef from these valleys, sliced thin and served cold.
Barley soup thickened with vegetables and cured meat.
Everywhere in winter. Engiadina is the address locals give for it.
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