St-Moritz – Majestic, nothing less!

Our European escapade continues and we are now in St-Moritz for a few days of skiing that promise to be simply incredible.

St-Moritz ‘s reputation is well established. Olympic city (1928 and 1948) and popular site of several film shoots, it is the dream place for the Swiss to come and practice their winter sports. The place is very chic and everyone can find something for them. You can have fun in the mountains, party with the cream of the crop in the posh restaurants or bars or simply spend all your money in exclusive boutiques like Céline, Cartier or Louis-Vuitton. You feel like you are in Monaco or Courchevel.

St-Moritz has been a chic and renowned winter sports resort for decades. It was also the host of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics after the Second World War. Nowadays, St- Moritz is also a year-round holiday resort.

In St-Moritz you can find everything. You can ski, bobsled, ski tour, swim, hang-glide, paraglide or go mountain biking in summer or fatbiking in winter. A stay here can turn into a memory of a lifetime. Not to mention the high-end boutiques like Cartier, Yves St-Laurent or Louis-Vuitton that will allow you to treat yourself.

There are also a host of diverse activities including skating and several shows on the frozen lake every winter.

Arrived from the Innsbruck region where we skied for three days, after a little over two hours of driving in a magical setting, we have been charmed by this city on the edge of the lake of the same name. St-Moritz is divided into four large sectors and it is in the Suvretta district that we were installed, at the very west of the city, at the Hotel Randolins . This hotel is actually located on a huge estate comprising several buildings with rooms but also with their own complementary vocations. For example, there is the spa, the shared work center, the laundry room, the ski warehouse and the private hotel. For our part, we resided in the main building where we find the dining room.

The atmosphere is traditional. The all-stone buildings with lintels remind us of Westmount or the Summit Circle sector on the mountain in Montreal. Very beautiful houses from the beginning of the last century renovated while keeping their unique style. A perfect marriage between history, tradition and modernism. It is very welcoming and very pleasant.

In addition to being pampered in this chic hotel a little more affordable in the world of the unaffordable, we are only 300 meters from the nearest ski lift in the resort. The Suvretta double chairlift, a small fixed chair that takes you through a whole district of unique properties, both in style and size, takes you quietly to the intermediate summit to then take the Paradiso chairlift to the first summit Munt Da San Murezzan at 2,659 meters. From there you have to quickly move to the left through the small tunnel to access the Corviglia sector. Otherwise you get stuck in slopes 1, 2 and 29, three very beautiful reds, but without enjoying the full extent of the area.

From there we arrived in the ski area and the view is already unreal. It is majestic!

Looking towards the top of the mountain, at Piz Nair, we can see the departures of the men’s and women’s worldcup downhills. Towards the valley we can see the village, St-Moritz Dorf at 1,846 meters as well as Samedan airport . We can see planes ✈️ and helicopters coming and going constantly. Yes, it is possible to fly directly here from several cities in Europe.

St-Moritz has 25 ski lifts and 35 slopes. When you say it like that, our local skiers must think that it’s not a lot, but don’t be fooled. All these slopes are endless and cover almost the entire vertical drop, from the summit to the base. It’s so vast that you could get lost, so don’t stop at the number of numbered slopes to get an idea. All these slopes are distributed over even separate peaks.

The famous little tunnel takes us to the top of run number 6 which allows us to go to Corviglia, the nerve center of the resort. We could also have taken a beautiful red, the 4, one of our favorite runs.

Once in the area, we decided to go a little further by the 14 to the top of the Las Trais Fluors summit where the view is just as breathtaking to go down two other of our favorites, the 21 and 22. There is also a beautiful black in this area, the 24, which runs alongside the chairlift. Plus it’s full sun today.

After a few descents here and there, we decided to go and stick our noses up to the village of Celerina, to see what’s going on there.

The fun is definitely to take the 25 run, a superb winding path, to get to the base. This kind of run is rare in the East and it’s so nice to ski. Once near the village we pass through the forest and then make the final straight to the base of the long gondola 🚡 which will take us back to our starting point.

All day long we were looking at the Piz Nair summit and we finally gave in to temptation. So we went up in the cable car to go have lunch towards the highest peak at 3,057 meters with a view that we are not about to forget. To do and to do again.

Unfortunately we cannot ski slope 16 from the summit this afternoon because it is closed. It does not seem to have been worked but as we are here for the week, we should be able to tick the box.

So it is after this unique experience and a beautiful cable car ride 🚠 that we explored the rest of the resort, especially in the Glüna sec, before taking slope 6 which can take us directly back to the hotel on skis. This little passage towards the house has become our well-kept secret for the week. Oddly enough, many skiers preferred to return to the hotel by shuttle but for us, it was always a pleasure to take this little path so practical. Then we could put our skis directly in our personal locker.

The next three days will certainly be wonderful and we are already looking forward to getting up tomorrow. We only scratched the surface today, just enough to make us realize that we will not have enough of the week to see all the facets of this famous place.

So happy skiing on your side of the Atlantic and follow us in this new adventure.

Hélène Racine and Philippe Laporte
Ski Media – Reporters

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