Saturday, Sep 5: The Alps around St. Moritz

We awoke this morning to find a light snow cover in the Engadine Mountains across from our hotel.  During the night we had lightning, thunder and rain in the valley.

We finally slept late this morning hurriedly arising to make sure that we didn't miss the hotel breakfast.  Alas, it was no problem as breakfast is served until "ten and a half".

We decide to explore the Alps by taking one of the various funiculars heading up the mountains.  We get on a regional bus to go to the base station, about a 20 minute bus ride from our hotel.  Alas, we stand on the wrong side of the street and get the right bus route but headed in the wrong direction.  We ride it to the end of the route and wait for the route to start over.  Our 20 minute ride takes an hour and a half.  Nevertheless, we get a nice slow motion tour of the surrounding towns. But it did end our streak of congratulating ourselves on navigating the public transportation like a local.

We take the funicular to Muottas Muragl

at an elevation of 2450 meters

where Beverly poses with a snowman.

We take a hike on one of the many trails

and encounter cows up on the mountain grazing for the summer.  The cows are actually on their way down to their winter lodgings.  Each cow has a bell.  The tinkling of the cow's bells provides a pleasant backdrop to the mountains.

Along the trail we encounter a one room hut in which a cow herder has opened a trail side cafe.  

We go in and have coffee and tea and have a great chat with the cow herder, a gentleman taking a sabbatical from living in Geneva and working for DuPont.

It resembled the grandfather's hut in Heidi.  This hut had a chamoix (chamois) head mounted on the wall.  A chamoix (goat/antelope) will soon be on my plate.

It happens that there is a very nice hotel and restaurant on the mountain at Muottas Muragl where we have lunch.

Bev has Alp style macaroni and mountain cheese with potatoes, air dried beef and apple compote.

I have chamoix (actually not the exact same one as on the wall ... as far as I know) stew with spaetsli, red cabbage and brussel sprouts.  The chamoix had a pleasant but strong flavor and went well with sauce and spaetsli.

After coming back down the mountain, we wait for the bus back to St. Moritz-dorf by a scenic stream.

I should mention the weather.  We had rain overnight and the forecast today was for rain and cold.  So we were pleasantly surprised that although brisk (low 40s) there was little precipitation, only a little snow up top and a light drizzle for a short period at the bottom.  We were occasionally enveloped by the cloud up top.  Beverly thought it would be a good time to use her iPhone when we were "in the cloud".

An interesting item in our hotel room is a thermometer stuck to the door leading to the balcony.

Tomorrow is a highlight of the trip, a ride on the Glacier Express train from St. Moritz to Zermatt taking about eight hours to traverse 291 bridges and 91 tunnels at an average speed of 20mph.  It is one of the signature trips of Switzerland.  And the weather forecast is improving, clearing clouds, sunshine and no rain.  Here's hoping ...