Far from the glamorous and expensive St. Moritz, there are unspoiled villages where you can discover authentic Grisons hospitality. In Engadine, the novelty of the ski season is the hotel skipass included, which with € 20 per day allows those who spend more than one night in one of the hundred hotels participating in the initiative to use the 350 km of slopes.
Among these, thePrivate Hotel which is located at Sils Maria, ideal for a stay with children. The cuisine offers local specialties and one of the hotel's pluses is the free bus that every twenty minutes takes you to the Furtschellas cable car, the closest lift connected to Corvatsch. This village, Sils Maria, it is very small, but appreciated by writers such as Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann, who stayed there for a long time. The area around the village, the Val di Fex, has an almost magical landscape between lakes and woods to be traveled with snowshoes or by carriage (cars are banned, apart from those of the few residents).
Continuing towards St. Moritz, a Champfèr, we find theMountain Garden Hotel one of the novelties of the valley, with contemporary and multicolored environments. The cuisine is Mediterranean with some traditional reinterpretations. There are spaces for children and the spa with swimming pool, saunas and Turkish bath. The rooms with a view of the Corvatsch and the bathrooms with a shower with river pebbles are very comfortable. Do not miss the panoramic terrace at an altitude of 2200 meters, in Chalet El Paradiso, a luxury retreat with 20 seats reserved for hotel guests, accessible by the Chasellas chairlift.
Another place that deserves to be mentioned is Celerina, where you can sleep at the well-known hotel Chesa Rosatsch, a typical Engadine house with a pink-painted facade, with wood-paneled rooms, including some on two floors. There is a wellness area with sauna and steam bath. The Uondas restaurant was recently opened but, for those who want to experience the old style, there is the Stuva Rosatsch, with a Graubünden menu.
They use materials from the valley, stone, wood and some old chests, but play with design. This is the architectural concept on which the Mÿsanus Palace, a historic Swiss hotel born from a patrician house of the last century. From this year, the use of the spa is included in the room price. The breakfast buffet is excellent, with organic products and homemade fruit jams. On reservation, once a week, you can have a fondue dinner. Also try the La Stalla restaurant, a very homely environment where dishes cooked on the wood stove are served: from pizzoccheri to rösti, to ossobuco with polenta.
Moving by funicular it is then possible to reach the renowned one Muottas Muragl, known as Romantik Hotel. Here you can eat and enjoy the view from the terrace-solarium, protected by glass walls, the peculiarity of this terrace are the armchairs covered with fur.
from Pontresina station the horse-drawn carriage leaves for Val Roseg: a handful of houses with façades decorated in the Engadine style, which are awarded the palm of eco-sustainable tourism. In fact, to keep intact the landscape from whose woods squirrels and deer often peep out, you can move only on foot, with cross-country skis or with the carriage that arrives at the meeting point in the valley: the terrace of the hotel-restaurant Roseg Gletscher . Spectacular panorama on Piz Bernina and buffet with an avalanche of sweets.
The smallest village in the Engadine (less than 200 inhabitants) is Madulain, where the opening of the Chesa Stuva Colani is nearing a renovated historic residence but, in the meantime, it is possible to sleep in a small hotel, the Crusch Alva.
