St Moritz

The line crosses the pass on wheel friction alone without a rack, so it wins height by swinging the track wide. At Brusio it drops a level on a viaduct that turns a full circle under itself, and carriages with windows that open are added in summer only.

Once winter has locked the lake, stands and fencing go up on the ice for horse racing and polo. The thickness is measured first, and a thin year cancels the meeting even with dates announced. A marked route for walking across the ice is set out separately.

In the autumn of 1864 a hotel keeper bet his summer guests they should return in winter. If the winter sun disappointed them he would pay their journey. They stayed till the following spring. The hotel still stands on the hill and tells the story in its lobby.

No refrigeration pipes and no concrete shell: the bends are packed up from snow and water. That means it is built again by hand every early winter and melts away in spring. Visitors can ride down behind a pilot, though only a few seats go each day.

A house given over to one painter who worked in this valley and died on a mountain above it. His triptych hangs under a round dome lit only from the ceiling, so the colours shift between a dull day and a clear one, and with few rooms an hour covers them.

Summer afternoons bring the wind down off the pass almost on schedule. People gather for it and the lake fills with sails and kites, while the same water lies mirror-flat in the morning. It is cold enough that a fall keeps nobody in for long.

Markers giving the year stand in order along the path from the station to the ice. The gap between the 1900 marker and today's snout is a long walk, so the retreat gets measured on foot. A marker is added each time the ice pulls back further.

The room Nietzsche took each summer stands unchanged: a bed, a desk, nothing else. The lakeside walk he used is marked at the rock where Zarathustra came to him, just over an hour on foot. The Fex valley behind has no road; you walk in or ride a carriage.

Heavy in iron, it tastes of metal and turns reddish if it stands in the glass. A timber well casing from the Bronze Age came out of the shaft here, showing more than three thousand years of use, and it is now taken by the glass inside the spa building.

Two coats of lime, the top scratched away, pattern the walls in every village down the valley. Thick walls make the windows small outside. They splay wider inward, so a room takes more light than it seems to. Cart-wide doors show barn and home shared a roof.

The bell tower left standing when its church was pulled down; slowly creeping ground has tilted it, reputedly further than Pisa's. Steel and repair work now hold it from leaning more. You pass it on the hillside above the village, heading for the lake views.

A lookout reached by an old funicular from Punt Muragl, showing the Engadine lakes strung out toward Maloja. Up top, a flat Philosophers' Path wanders off. At dusk the lakes glow red, so the evening trains fill up.

A mountain climbed by linked funiculars from St Moritz Dorf: the village's main ski area in winter, walking trails in summer. One more cable car reaches Piz Nair, above 3,000 metres, where strong wind means a jacket is wise whatever the season.

A lookout near 3,000 metres reached by cable car from a Bernina line stop, facing Piz Palu and two glacier tongues. In summer guided hikes cross the ice and come down toward Morteratsch. Nobody goes onto the glacier alone.

A small lake in larch forest between St Moritz and Pontresina, reached on level woodland paths from either village. Shallow and warm for this altitude, it draws swimmers in summer. In autumn the larches turn gold in the water.

A car-free valley from Pontresina, with horse carriages running to a hotel facing the glacier at its head. Many walk one way and ride the carriage the other. In the woods along the way, tame squirrels come up close.