Swiss Grand Circle - 04. Bellinzona and Locarno

Hairpin turns after hairpin turns aboard a dizzying PostBus ride, we crossed the Alps and descended into a land of medieval citadels, Renaissance squares and a familiar romantic tongue. Road signs abruptly switched languages and so did our previously German-speaking bus driver.

This can’t still be Switzerland, right?


Except the train station still proudly brandished its SBB signage, and the Swiss red-and-white still flew above the town’s historic bastions. We’ve arrived at Switzerland’s southernmost canton, a small outcrop of Swiss territory wedged into Italian Lombardy like an old hatchet. A few kilometres further and we’d be on the lakeshore of Lago di Como, with Milan being less than an hour away.


This was only our 5th day in Switzerland as we moved from German-speaking Appenzellerland to the Romansch enclave of Graubünden, and now onward to the Italianate canton of Ticino. The crisp mountain air of St. Moritz -- a brisk 5 degrees in the morning compared with our sweaty 26 degree afternoon in Bellinzona -- now seemed a distant memory.


While the Bernina Express via Tirano may be popular, the most direct route from St. Moritz to Bellinzona is an SBB express train to Thusis followed by a nauseously winding bus ride through the San Bernardino Pass, dropping 1000m in elevation before arriving at the cantonal capital in a total of 3.5 hours. The air turned noticeably humid once we passed through the Alps, now imparting an unmistakeable musty scent that proclaimed its Mediterranean climate.


Often romanticized by tourism brochures as the perfect marriage between Swiss orderliness and Italian flair, the real Ticino is somewhat in the middle. Notwithstanding its handsome looks, cities do appear a little more scruffy and trains a little less punctual compared with cantons to north of the Alps. But that’s the uniqueness of Ticino.


Stuffing our heavy backpacks into a train station locker, we mapped out our half-day itinerary starting from the charming inner courtyard of Palazzo Civico, past the Renaissance marble façade of Chiesa San Pietro e Stefano and reaching the first of Bellinzona’s three castles, centrepiece in a network of medieval fortifications that once defended the Ticino Valley against the expanding Swiss Confederates.


Within seconds a well-camouflaged elevator whisked us from Piazza del Sole up to the grassy courtyard of the aptly named Castelgrande, set upon a colossal natural rock and dominating the valley from the time of the Roman Emperors. Aside from providing some green space for local citizens to enjoy on their lunch breaks, the castle also features impressive crenellations that now provide the perfect support for camera tripods.


Armed with a map and useful advices from the Tourist Info office, we took on a little hike towards the hilltop castle, 90 to 120 minutes according to the office staff but significantly shorter according to my own estimation. With an elevation gain of just 230m and in milder climate, this was nowhere near the Walls of Kotor in terms of physical exertion.


Midway up the hillside stands the second castle known as Montebello, 90m above Castelgrande and historically linked to the lower castle via its series of monumental ramparts that controlled access to the strategic alpine passes northward towards the Rhine and the Danube. From this height the patterns of medieval town planning become obvious: little claustrophobic alleys radiating from two cobblestone squares that still hosts Saturday open-air markets in a centuries-old tradition.


From the Middle Ages until the arrival of the steam engine, these castles guarded the vital crossroads of alpine routes connecting the Swiss Confederates of the north with the Italian city states -- Milan in particular -- of the south. In time these formidable defenses, unique in the entire Alps, became Switzerland’s most impressive castle and a bonafide UNESCO World Heritage Site.


After a quick stop at Montebello’s little museum, we continued our hike past the local vineyards towards the third castle of Sasso Corbaro, now hosting a scenic restaurant and venue for artistic exhibitions. Built by the Milanese over a six month period after being routed at the Battle of Giornico by a Swiss army less than a tenth of its size, the new fortress never managed to turn history’s tides when the orphaned Bellinzona chose to join the Swiss Confederation a few decades later.


Among the vineyards stands the eye-catching Chiesa San Sebastiano, famous for its ancient fresco from the twilight years of the Roman Empire. 90 minutes turned out to be generous for this hike even with plenty of photo stops, bringing us to Sasso Corbaro at around 15:00 with time to spare before the next bus back to town.


Panoramic views as far as Lago Maggiore was our reward atop Sasso Corbaro, now a 45 minute walk -- or in our case a 10 minute ride on one of the two afternoon buses serving hikers and restaurant patrons -- back to the train station where we would be united with our backpacks. It would take another 30 minute train ride before we would reach our hotel at Locarno.


For budget travelers like ourselves, Locarno’s main attraction was the cheap prices of its hotels -- one-third off Bellinzona’s in general -- in a laidback lakeside setting. Our no-nonsense hotel room at Al Pozz, fully equipped with a functional kitchen and a washing machine, was our second cheapest accommodation over two weeks in Switzerland.


The main reason for cheap prices of course was its proximity to the Italian border, merely a 30-minute drive along the palm-lined Lago Maggiore where boats flying both Italian and Swiss flags were not uncommon. Roads on the lake’s right shore would lead to Piedmont in the direction of Torino, while the left shore would lead to Lombardy and Milan.


Dominating Locarno’s old town is Switzerland’s largest town square, fittingly named Piazza Grande and best known for hosting Switzerland’s premier film festival every August on a ginormous open-air screen.


A torrential rainstorm nearly squashed our chance to see Locarno’s historic quarter, but the rapidly changeable Swiss weather offered enough of a break the next morning for exploring the old town’s collection of steep medieval alleys that all converge towards the covered arcades of Piazza Grande.


Our excursion would last barely 90 minutes before our next train would deliver us in the general direction of southwestern Switzerland. But this would not be a Swiss train and its destination wasn't even Switzerland. As obscure as this may sound, the most direct route between southeast and southwestern Switzerland is actually via a charming Italian town known as Domodossola.

Swiss Grand Circle - 03. St Moritz's Spectacular Panorama Trail

With vistas of pristine glaciers, turquoise alpine lakes and the highest peak of the Eastern Alps all condensed into one easy hike at minimal effort, it was impossible to turn down even for two 9-to-5 office workers of mediocre fitness -- especially when the chairlift tickets were free.


Free tickets aside, this had to be one of my three favourite beginner hikes -- the Lavaux vineyard route and the Männlichen-Kleine Scheidegg trail being the other two -- of our 16-day circular route through ten Swiss cantons starting and ending at Zürich.


If you can spot the thin horizontal line across the alpine forest, yes, that’s the trail -- a mostly flat, reasonably-maintained 6.7 km footpath with views of the majestic Piz Bernina glaciers for half of the hike, and panoramas of the Engadine Lakes beckoning below for the other half.

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But first we had to fuel up at the town’s Coop supermarket, which carried an assortment of local charcuterie specialties including Graubünden’s proud Bündnerfleisch and Bündner Salsiz. We also started to adopt the Swiss hikers’ practice of carrying a tube of Tomy mustard/mayo, indispensable when making sandwiches on the trail.


Known as Panoramaweg Muottas Muragl, the trail follows the alpine tree line at 2400m altitude between the Alp Languard chairlift and the Muottas Muragl funicular station. We chose to take the 2-person chairlift from Pontresina up to Alp Languard and hiked in the direction of Muottas Muragl, though many hikers prefer the opposite direction for its slightly downhill route.


Ending our hike at Muottas Muragl has its benefits. While the Alp Languard chairlift closes after 17:30, the Muottas Muragl funicular opens until 23:00 for the clientele of its mountain top restaurant. We could take all the time we needed to enjoy our views of Bernina Valley below with its raging whitewaters twisting towards St. Moritz in the distance.


Leading our path in front was the azure Lake St. Moritz with its emblematic luxury yachts gliding across the alpine lake with the jagged Piz Julier as backdrop. Halfway up the mountain was the expansive grassy plateau accessible by the Corviglia funicular, the locale for our next day’s hike above St. Moritz.


Behind our back was the constant view of the 4000m Piz Bernina and its neighbouring glacier of Morteratsch. After crossing a provisional tunnel in a rockslide area, we reached the one-third point of our hike signified by a popular watering hole.


Boasting fabulous panoramas of Piz Bernina on one side and the Engadine Lakes on the other, Unterer Schafberg was simply irresistible as a pit stop for these two thirsty hikers craving for some süssmost, the local variant of unfiltered, potent apple cider. I must commend the seasonal cafe for its fair prices, e.g. CHF 6 for a 0.5 L cider, considering that everything would need to be transported uphill to its location in the middle of nowhere.


The first leg from Alp Languard, 45 minutes on paper, took us 1 hour and 15 minutes with frequent stops for hikers coming in the opposite direction along the narrow mountainside trail. The second leg towards Muottas Muragl was supposed to be 1 hour and 45 minutes, and we needed to speed up in our attempt to make it back to Samedan by dinnertime.


Two-thirds into our hike we reached the most rugged section where the trail was nearly washed out by fallen rocks. The barren landscape towards the mountaintop is home to the largest ibex colony in the entire Alps, though our chance of spotting one would be higher in springtime when they tend to forage at lower elevations.


Much of our trail hovered just above the tree line at 2400m, separating the grassy alpine meadows below from the harsh rocky terrain above. Towards the final third our footpath merged with the Segantini Hut trail, another route with the same start and end points but taking a higher elevation path.


Just north of the Muragl creek the trail passed through a terrain of marmot burrows where it was impossible to miss these chubby fellows foraging diligently ahead of hibernation season.


The 110-year-old Muottas funicular beckoned from our finish line, climbing 700m up a steep incline from the valley and sporting the world’s most accurate sundial -- and moondial in the winter -- above its peak station.


By 17:40 we reached the Alp Muottas restaurant, now just a few minutes from the funicular station, among an orchestra of cowbells from the restaurant’s own herd of black Angus cattle roaming the hills above. As the string of Engadine Lakes glimmered in the sunset, it was time to return to the valley for dinner.


We took the 18:15 funicular back to Pontresina, making it a 4 hour hike with a 40 minute break at the Schafberg hut. The round-trip ticket for Alp Languard-Muottas Muragl would have absolutely warranted its regular price of CHF 35, but even better when it was paid for by our hotel courtesy of the Bergbahnen Inklusive program. If you’re planning a budget trip to Switzerland like we did, see the earlier post on doing St. Moritz on the cheap.


We rewarded ourselves with a cheap local dinner of vinegared wurst and pan-fried rösti, presented in this autumn season with a helping of chanterelle mushrooms. Special thanks to the friendly chef at Restorant Sper l'En in Samedan for reaching out to these Canadians with stories of the local ice hockey team. Danke vilmal!

Swiss Grand Circle - 02. St Moritz on the Cheap

In case rugged peaks and pristine alpine lakes don’t fit your image of glitzy St. Moritz, we spent our 48 hours on some breathtaking hikes rather than the Jimmy Choo and Rolex showrooms, with all gondola rides and chairlifts paid for by our hotel.

And if you’re still wondering why these two backpackers chose expensive St. Moritz as vacation spot, trust me, we wouldn’t have done so if we didn’t get a good deal out of it.


Now THIS of course, is most people’s image of St. Moritz, the definitive Swiss luxury alpine resort and timeless playground even for the most jaded celebrities and European royals. From 19th century masquerade balls to modern day snow polo tournaments showcasing a dozen stallions galloping across its frozen lake, the extravagance of St. Moritz has always attracted the world’s wealthiest.


At the time of writing, St Moritz still holds the dubious distinction for the world’s second most expensive hotels on average. Combined with the fact that none of the local ski lifts provide any discount for holders of the Half Fare Card or Swiss Travel Pass -- the favorite money saving strategy of foreign visitors -- and you may wonder why the average guy would ever vacation here.

Ah, but there is a trick.


Yes, the great equalizer known locally as Bergbahnen Inklusive. Book into an endorsed hotel for two nights or more, and the hotel pays for all mountain transport -- funiculars, gondolas, chairlifts -- in the Upper Engadine Valley from Piz Nair to Corvatsch to Diavolezza near the Italian border. In our extreme example, we paid CHF 298 plus local tax for our two-night stay, and the hotel refunded all our return lift tickets -- Muottas Muragl / Alp Languard, Diavolezza and Corviglia -- for CHF 242 back in cash. If paying CHF 56 total for two nights in a double room, in a 4-star hotel at Switzerland’s most expensive resort sounds too good to be true, go to the official site and see for yourself.


Penny-pinching aside, we still wanted to check out the lavish Victorian deco inside Badrutt’s Palace or Kulm Hotel. Now it may sound exceedingly decadent for two backpackers to reserve a table at Badrutt’s Le Grand Hall for its opulent English afternoon tea, except that it’s arguably cheaper than two entrées with beers at a blue-collar Swiss gaststube -- and was filling enough to double as an early dinner.


As if the hiking and gastronomy weren’t enticing enough, the rail journey itself -- 2 hours of stunning alpine scenery from SBB’s oversized train windows -- from Chur to St. Moritz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring the world’s most amazing 19th and early 20th century railway engineering.


Implausible spiral tunnels and the pictured Landwasser Viaduct are among the ingenious 120-year-old engineering feats helping the Rhaetian Railway overcome staggering elevation differences through mountain passes. For rail buffs, the reservations-only Bernina Express would be an unsurpassable showcase of turn-of-20th-century rail engineering as the narrow guage train climbs 1500m from Chur to Bernina Pass before dropping 1700m down to the Italian town of Tirano.


Fresh off our train from Chur, we stopped first at our hotel in the neighbourhood of Samedan to drop off everything except our poles and a day pack for our afternoon hike. I cannot recommend Hotel Bernina 1865 enough for its hearty breakfast buffet that fuelled our morning hike in addition to the much-appreciated sauna room after hiking.


And remember, with the Bergbahnen Inklusive program our hotel paid for all of our gondola tickets. On the first day we tackled the Muottas Muragl Panorama Trail, to be reviewed in the next post, and on the second day we did two hikes starting with a gondola ride up the 2900m Diavolezza.


Even among non-hikers, Diavolezza is famous for its front row panorama of the Eastern Alps’ tallest peak -- the 4048m Piz Bernina (right) flanked by the 3900m Piz Palü with its glacier (left) -- right outside the gondola station with no hiking required.


While this isn’t a physically demanding hike, the 30 minute climb up to the rocky summit of Sass Queder was complicated by an ankle-twisting path of loose rocks as well as the thin air at 3000m. Awaiting at the top is Europe’s highest barbecue pit fit for an epic picnic.


This was the 360 panorama that made it worthwhile: Piz Bernina and Piz Palü behind the back, a cliff-edge drop to Lago Bianco beneath the feet, and countless Italian peaks as far as the eye can see in the direction of Bormio.


After a short train ride of spectacular hairpin turns, we arrived back at St. Moritz where we hopped on the Corviglia funicular for our second hike of the day, on a grassy 2500m plateau that once served as the alpine skiing venue for the 1948 Winter Olympics.


With less than three hours available before having to return to St. Moritz, we took the official Corviglia hiking map and picked Familienweg Lej Alv, marked No. 8 on the map and billed as an easy, 5 km trail in the shadow of gorgeous 3000m peaks. It’s also marked as stroller-friendly, I mean, navigation should be a breeze, right?


Except that the advertised trail didn’t really exist, or perhaps the overgrown vegetation had reduced it into a barely-noticeable goat path that certainly wasn’t stroller-friendly. For 30 minutes our only guidance was my phone’s imprecise GPS reception, pointing us towards a distant flock of wooly sheep.


Of course the sheep were hanging out beside this sublime alpine lake and the destination of our hike, a natural reservoir with crystal blue waters and zero visitors aside from ourselves, plus one caretaker attempting to keep the vegetation in control with his handheld weed trimmer. With a circumference of exactly 1 km, the wood-chip-covered running track circling the lake is apparently popular with distance runners arriving for altitude training.


Just beyond the reservoir we reached the pristine emerald lake of Lej Alv, perennially fed by snow melt from the 3100m Piz Grisch to provide a rare watering hole in these alpine meadows. In a couple weeks the owners would return and bring the herds back to the valley for the annual Alpabzug procession and wintering in the covered barns.


The stroller-friendly trail emerged at last, leading from Lej Alv back to the funicular station with sweeping views towards the towns of Celerina and Samedan where we were staying. The 5 km loop took us about 2 hours in good weather, with a long rest at the reservoir and plenty of photo stops along the route, taking us back to St. Moritz in time for our 17:00 reservation.


Victorian armchairs, inlaid marble floors and wall-to-ceiling wood panels abound, the aptly named Le Grand Hall is the classic setting for English afternoon tea at Badrutt’s Palace, St. Moritz’s 120-year-old landmark frequently voted top hotel in all of Switzerland. Now this may sound really absurd, but buried behind this lavishness was one of the best deals in town.


Guests are greeted by majestic windows overlooking the hotel’s own yacht sailing across the turquoise Lake St. Moritz, ready for hire by the next billionaire checking in. Inside the same menu featuring CHF 4500 bottles of vintage Krug is a small section detailing the hotel’s signature afternoon tea set: more than a dozen finger sandwiches, cakes and scones complemented by a small dictionary of teas from around the world, with a surprisingly affordable price tag.


We had no hope of finishing this tower of tartlets and sandwiches, ranging from smoked salmon to macaron to prosciutto-and-alpine-cheese to Engadine nusstorte to a delectable cheesecake with a crème brulee top. Each guest gets her personal choice of tea -- 28 varieties in total including an outstanding Oolong -- served in a teapot of polished silver.


We made sure to finish before 19:00 when jackets become mandatory, now filled to our cheeks with no further need for dinner. The price for an afternoon of extravagance? Just CHF 32.5 (CAD$45) per person, which barely buys an entrée of bratwurst, rösti and beer in a typical Swiss restaurant. A Canadian equivalence I’m familiar with is the famous afternoon tea at Victoria, B.C.'s Empress Hotel, which charges CAD$82 plus tax at the time of writing. Not to sound unpatriotic, but at half the price I'd take Badrutt's any day.


As mentioned we took full advantage of the Bergbahnen Inklusive program with a third hike over our two-night stay. The stunning Panorama Trail between Alp Languard and Muottas Muragl will be the subject of the next post.