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Badrutt's Palace Hotel, St. Moritz

Switzerland · Alpen

St. Moritz

The Engadine resort where Alpine winter tourism began in 1864, quiet outside two seasons.

Eine Reisezielseite ist zeitlich gegliedert: wann der Ort relevant ist, welche Veranstaltungen ihn relevant machen und wie er sich über das Jahr verändert – anschließend die praktische Geografie (Flughäfen, Marinas, Stadtteile, Hotelgebiete).

St. Moritz sits above a small lake in the Upper Engadine, a high, dry valley in the canton of Grisons in southeastern Switzerland, at 1,822 meters. The town holds fewer than 5,000 residents, split between the older hillside quarter of St. Moritz-Dorf and the lakeside spa quarter of St. Moritz-Bad below it. Bronze Age votive offerings found near its mineral springs show the valley's waters were known long before any resort existed, and through most of the nineteenth century St. Moritz was a modest summer spa town, visited for its air and its water rather than its snow.

Winter changed that by way of a wager. In 1864 the hotelier Caspar Badrutt bet a group of English summer guests that they would enjoy an Engadine winter more than an English one, offering to refund their travel if he was wrong; the guests stayed into spring in shirtsleeves on his terrace and returned the following winter with friends. That bet is generally treated as the start of Alpine winter tourism as a deliberate idea, rather than an accident of geography. The consequences compounded quickly: the Cresta Run, a natural-ice toboggan track to Celerina, opened in 1884, and the Olympia Bobrun followed in 1904, the oldest bobsleigh track still in operation anywhere. St. Moritz hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, one of only four towns to have done so.

That inheritance still shapes the calendar. Each January and February the frozen surface of Lake St. Moritz becomes a venue in its own right, hosting international polo and horse racing in successive weeks, while the peaks above the town - Corviglia, Corvatsch, Piz Nair - carry conventional Alpine skiing. Outside those months St. Moritz keeps a second, quieter identity as a summer base for hiking, cycling and altitude training in the thin, reliably sunny Engadine air, a rhythm closer to its original nineteenth-century purpose than to its winter fame.

01Wann St. Moritz Bedeutung

Zwölf Monate Aktivität, berechnet aus den Veranstaltungen im Kalender dieses Reiseziels – die Bedeutung jeder Veranstaltung wird auf die Tage ihrer Dauer verteilt. Die für jeden Monat verantwortlichen Veranstaltungen sind neben dem Balken aufgeführt.

Snow Polo World Cup St. Moritz · JanWhite Turf · FebEngadin Skimarathon · MarSt. Moritz Gourmet Festival · Aug
Lake St. Moritz - St. Moritz, Switzerland Lake St. Moritz is located at a height of 1768 m in the Upper Engadin, Switzerland. The river Inn flows through this lake St. Moritz is a resort town and hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948. It is a popular destination of the upper class A view of the area around St, St. Moritz View of Lake St, St. Moritz

02Der Kalender hier

Demnächst

  • 22 Jan → Jan 24, 2027
    St. Moritz · Switzerland · Polo Snow Polo World Cup St. Moritz 42nd Snow Polo World Cup St. Moritz · · 42nd Snow Polo World Cup St. Moritz Bestätigt
    Bedeutsam
  • 7 Feb
    St. Moritz · Switzerland · Reitsport White Turf St. Moritz First race day (120th White Turf) · · First race day (120th White Turf) Bestätigt
    Bemerkenswert
  • 6 Mar → Mar 14, 2027
    Engadin · Switzerland · Ski Engadin Skimarathon Bestätigt
    Regional
  • 24 Aug → Aug 29, 2027
    St. Moritz · Switzerland · Essen & Wein St. Moritz Gourmet Festival 33rd edition, second summer edition · · 33rd edition, second summer edition Bestätigt
    Regional

Jede Veranstaltung im Kalender

Den Kalender dieses Reiseziels abonnieren (ICS) · Im Kalender öffnen

03Warum es relevant ist

St. Moritz's position rests on being first rather than largest: Zermatt draws more skiers and other Swiss resorts a younger crowd, but none can claim to have invented the underlying idea that an Alpine winter was worth traveling for. In our reading, that origin is what still lets a town of under 5,000 people stage events - polo and horse racing on a frozen lake, held nowhere else at comparable scale - that resorts with larger ski areas do not attempt; the spectacle exists because St. Moritz built the stage for it a century and a half ago and has rebuilt it, literally, out of ice every winter since.

04Das Jahr, Monat für Monat

JanuarThe Snow Polo World Cup takes over the frozen lake for a weekend in the fourth week of January, and the ski season is fully established, though this is also one of the valley's coldest months.
FebruarWhite Turf's three race Sundays bring horse racing to the same frozen lake through February, alongside the height of the ski season on Corviglia and Corvatsch.
MärzThe Engadin Skimarathon crosses the frozen valley floor on the second Sunday, drawing a much larger and more open crowd than the winter's two spectator fixtures; skiing itself stays reliable at altitude even as lower slopes soften.
AprilThe ski season typically closes in the first half of the month, though the exact date depends on snow cover; hotels and restaurants settle into a quieter stretch as the winter crowd leaves.
MaiOne of the valley's quietest months, with lifts shut, the high trails still under snow, and the town caught between seasons.
JuniSnow retreats from the valley floor and lower trails reopen; cyclists and hikers begin returning to the Engadine ahead of the fuller summer season.
JuliHiking and cycling traffic builds through the month, and the lake itself reopens for sailing and windsurfing as the valley's brief, intense summer gets underway.
AugustThe St. Moritz Gourmet Festival now fills the last week of August with chefs cooking across the Engadine's hotels, in what is otherwise the valley's busiest and warmest summer month.
SeptemberSummer activity continues into early autumn - hiking, cycling and lake sports - at a slightly quieter pace than August, before the shoulder season sets in.
OktoberA quiet month with lifts not yet running and the summer crowd gone; autumn color in the larch forests is a modest local draw.
NovemberThe valley's calmest month, though ski lifts typically begin turning again in the second half of November as the resorts prepare to open, snow cover permitting.
DezemberThe ski season is usually underway by the middle of the month, and the town fills again for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

05Wetter nach Monat

MonatHöchsttemperatur °CTief °CNiederschlag mm
Januar-1.3-15.829.4
Februar0.5-15.619.0
März4.0-9.623.7
April7.9-4.336.9
Mai12.90.167.0
Juni17.03.290.9
Juli19.34.786.8
August18.84.7100.4
September14.61.373.2
Oktober10.5-2.676.6
November4.1-7.869.8
Dezember-0.7-13.436.6
Quelle: Wikipedia climate table for St. Moritz (Samedan Airport, 1,709 m, 5 km from the town; 1991-2020 normals, extremes since 1901; MeteoSwiss/NOAA data). Langfristige Durchschnittswerte; eine bestimmte Woche kann abweichen.

06Anreise und Fortbewegung vor Ort

FlughäfenZurich Airport (ZRH) · 226 km · kommerziell — the main international gateway; about three hours by road, or a scenic rail journey of four to five hours changing at Chur.Engadin Airport (SMV) · 5 km · private aviation — at Samedan, one of the highest airports in Europe; handles business and general aviation rather than scheduled airline service.
PrivatluftfahrtEngadin Airport at Samedan is the valley's own field, used almost entirely for business jets, gliders and helicopters rather than scheduled flights; most private traffic otherwise routes through Zurich or, from the Italian side, Milan.
HubschrauberCharter helicopters operate from Samedan for transfers and heli-skiing excursions into the surrounding peaks, without a scheduled shuttle route comparable to the Riviera's Nice-Monaco link.
Vor Ort navigierenSt. Moritz's railway station, at the edge of the lake, is the terminus of the Rhaetian Railway's Albula and Bernina lines, both part of a UNESCO World Heritage line, and the starting point for the Glacier Express to Zermatt and the Bernina Express into Italy. A funicular reaches Corviglia directly from the Dorf, and cable cars serve Corvatsch and Diavolezza from villages further along the valley. A car is of limited use for reaching the high points and is actively discouraged in the town center during the two winter spectator weeks.

07Wo sich die Dinge befinden

Stadtteile

St. Moritz-Dorfthe hillside town center, with the Corviglia funicular, the casino and the main hotel and shopping streets.
St. Moritz-Badthe lakeside quarter below Dorf, built around the original mineral springs and now holding sport and conference facilities.
Suvrettaa quiet, wooded hillside district west of Dorf, largely given over to a handful of large hotels.
Champfèra small lakeside hamlet toward Silvaplana, at the quieter edge of the built-up valley.

Hotelbereiche

St. Moritz-Dorf holds the valley's historic grand hotels, including Badrutt's Palace and the Kulm Hotel - the latter the site of the town's first Olympic events and, before that, of Caspar Badrutt's original wager - within walking distance of the funicular and the main shops. Suvretta, on the wooded hillside to the west, is quieter and more secluded, built around a small number of large hotels rather than a village center. St. Moritz-Bad offers a more moderate, spa-oriented register nearer the lake. Because the valley's total room count is modest against its winter demand, the two spectator weeks in January and February compress booking pressure across all three areas at once.

Restaurantviertel

Via Serlas and the streets around the Dorf's main square carry the highest concentration of restaurants and cafés, busiest during the two winter event weeks. Mountain restaurants at Corviglia and above Corvatsch operate through the ski season for lunch traffic off the slopes. St. Moritz-Bad's dining is more everyday and less seasonal.

Kulturelle Institutionen

Segantini Museumbuilt in 1908 to hold the work of the painter Giovanni Segantini, who spent his last years in the Engadine and painted its high light.
Cresta Runa natural-ice skeleton track between St. Moritz and Celerina, rebuilt from scratch each winter since 1884.
St. Moritz Olympia Bobrunthe oldest bobsleigh track still in operation, hand-built in ice between St. Moritz and Celerina each winter since 1904.

Einkaufen

Via Serlas, in St. Moritz-Dorf, holds the town's concentration of designer boutiques within a few hundred meters of the main hotels; it is a small, dense shopping street rather than a district in the mall sense.

08Wie sich der Ort verändert

St. Moritz runs on two short, intense seasons separated by two long quiet ones. Midwinter turns the frozen lake into a stage for spectator sport and fills the Dorf's hotels for six or seven weeks; midsummer brings a slower, sportier crowd for hiking, cycling and altitude training. May and November, the shoulder months between them, are close to dormant, with lifts shut and much of the hospitality trade on its own break.

09Geschichte

Evidence of Bronze Age offerings at St. Moritz's mineral springs suggests the valley's waters were valued long before any resort existed, and the town spent much of the nineteenth century as a summer spa. Caspar Badrutt's 1864 wager with a group of English guests - that they would prefer an Engadine winter to an English one - is credited with turning the valley into a winter destination by design rather than accident; the guests stayed into spring and returned the following winter with others. The Cresta Run followed in 1884 and the Olympia Bobrun in 1904, both still operated on hand-built natural ice each winter. St. Moritz hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, one of only four towns to have hosted the Winter Games twice. Giovanni Segantini's paintings of the Engadine's high light, made in the last years of his life in the 1890s, gave the valley a second, artistic reputation alongside its sporting one.

In der Nähe

Quellen

  1. White Turf St. Moritz — official site, Verein White Turf St. Moritz official aufgerufen 6 September 2026
  2. St. Moritz, Wikipedia encyclopedia aufgerufen 9 September 2026
  3. Samedan Airport, Wikipedia encyclopedia aufgerufen 9 September 2026
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