Milan 2014: 18 July 2014

After a lovely snooze, we ate a good breakfast at the hotel. We paid a little extra for it, but it all worked out. The food was fresh, the coffee was good, and the variety of things offered was generous. From there we meandered over to the train station and got on the Bernina Express!

What a clever idea! The train has windows that go up a little over the roof so that you can look out at the full height of the panorama. We had the best side, I think, which was just by chance. We had purchased the tickets sometime in May when we were sitting in the office at Mason planning things!

Off we went on our 2 and a bit hour trip through the Alps. The views are just stunning! Meg and I used her fancy camera, which took some terrific pictures. There are a few stops along the way….not for us to get out and look, but just train stations along the way.

The train wends its way up the sides of the mountains from the valley below and climbs up a few thousand feet to the peak and then down into St. Moritz. Along the way you can see glaciers, rocky peaks, a dam, natural lakes, man-made lakes, miles and miles of hiking trails, cows, and just gorgeous scenery! The pictures I’ve posted just don’t do it justice!

It was nice to relax on the train and just sit in awe of all the beauty. We arrived in St. Moritz and decided to eat lunch before we went to our hotel, which was in the next little town over. Off we went! We had asked for directions and some other info about the region from the Info desk at the station. We were hungry and after climbing the hill (steep) with our luggage, we found a cute little center of town with outdoor seating.

Overpriced food was to be expected since it’s a resort town and we were not disappointed. I ordered the spaghetti because I knew it would be filling and I was starving! Meg ordered the meatloaf. What came out did not look anything like meatloaf. However, upon careful inspection (after she’d already announced that we would be sharing our lunches), she realized it was, in fact, a tasty concoction of meat that was shaped into a loaf and then cut much like bologna or ham sandwich meat and put on the plate. My spaghetti was safe. I laughed at her.

We wandered back down toward the train station, only to discover a set of escalators that would have prevented us from schlepping our luggage up the side of the mountain. We were unimpressed that the lady didn’t tell us that tiny, helpful fact. We took the escalators down to lake level and walked along the lake. Gorgeous weather, beautiful day, several people out and about. We both put our feet into the water…..cold and refreshing (?) and then we went to catch our train to the next town.

We found a reasonably priced hotel in a neighboring town called Celerina. All-In-One Hotel wound up being very close to the train station and there was also a bus stop within a 10 minute walk. Found our hotel and checked in.

The price was great for the night (110 Francs), whereas the rest of the hotels we were looking at were almost double that. The room was bare bones, but the bunk beds (there were two of them in the room) were very comfy! We both chose the bottom bunks because we knew we’d be up in the night using the toilet. How un-fun, but very practical. Nice shower and a huge desk area for us to work at if we wanted.

The most exciting part of the whole thing was that the trams, buses, gondolas up the side of the mountains, and the trains were FREE! This saved us probably about 50 francs each! It basically made one night free. We had kind of a plan set in motion before this, but once we realized things would be taken care of, we were pumped!

view from our hotel room!

Back to the room to celebrate our options with a luxurious nap! Feather pillows and duvets on a soft mattress! The weather was cool and we were able to sleep with the windows open a little bit. A few bugs, but no biting ones, so no big deal. A lovely two hour nap later and we were ready to catch the bus and head over to the gondola at Muottas Muragl.

Muottas Muragl has a hotel and restaurant on the side of it. It is a lovely place with both an indoor restaurant and an outdoor one. The hotel, as you can imagine, is quite spendy, but not as much as we’d thought it would be. It was 141Francs per person, per night. And, the view was stunning overlooking the valley toward St. Moritz and Celerina. It faced west and we had sunlight for quite a while in the evening.

On the top of the mountain for dinner

We decided to eat there and it was an absolutely delicious meal! Spent more than we had wanted to, but the beef was so tender, you could cut it with a butter knife! Yummy! While the food was great, the service left a lot to be desired. He came into our room of four tables and always seemed a little surprised that we were there. Very nice guy, just slow and inattentive.

After dinner (three hours long), we took a quick look out and then took the tram back down. I called it a mountain crab because it’s just climbing up the mountain slowly, but surely. Interestingly, we could see more stars and the Milky Way at the bottom of the mountain than at the top. It was really, really cold and Meg said she’d pay for the taxi home rather than waiting for the bus. It was cold, but wonderful! I thought it was a splendid temperature…probably in the low 50s! Got home, took a shower, and passed out tired in the bed! A great day and a wonderful evening to cap it off.