Unwind / Switzerland
The Engadin in Summer
Engadin · 7 min read
The Engadin is a high valley in southeast Switzerland, about eighteen hundred metres up, famous for winter and quietly better in summer. Larch forest, a chain of lakes, thick walled painted houses and a light that painters keep trying to describe.
It is expensive and it is worth it.
Walking without suffering
Cable cars from Pontresina, Sils and Corvatsch put you high without the climb, and the valley floor paths between Sils, Silvaplana and St Moritz are flat, lakeside and beautiful.
The Val Roseg walk from Pontresina to the glacier hotel and back is the classic easy day, with a horse drawn carriage available if legs fail.
The villages
Sils Maria is small, literary and calm, and where Nietzsche spent his summers. Guarda and Ftan further down the valley have the finest sgraffito decorated houses in Switzerland.
St Moritz is the famous name and the least interesting place to stay. Base elsewhere and visit it if you must.
Water and air
The lakes are swimmable in July and August if you are brave, and windsurfing on Silvaplana is a local institution thanks to the reliable afternoon Maloja wind.
The air at this altitude was prescribed medically for a century, and after three days here you will understand the theory.
The case for doing nothing
It is restorative in an old fashioned, sanatorium era sense, and the transport is so good that you never need a car.
Come in the last week of September when the larches turn gold.
