{"id":1355,"date":"2004-04-27T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globetrotters.co.uk\/newsletter\/2004\/04\/27\/st-moritz-and-lucerne-by-iona-hill\/"},"modified":"2018-01-02T16:42:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T16:42:53","slug":"st-moritz-and-lucerne-by-iona-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globetrotters.co.uk\/newsletter\/st-moritz-and-lucerne-by-iona-hill.html","title":{"rendered":"St Moritz and Lucerne by Iona Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n I went to St Moritz for a week in February – on a course in a place
\n called Randolins in Survetta, a little way outside the town – not
\n skiing.  Randolins is a not for profit organisation that
\n caters mainly for groups, such as children on ski camps or adult
\n learning.  It's a very nice place, simple, but comfortable
\n – definitely not your 5 star kind of place.  It has shared
\n rooms and you have to take part in the chores, so things like going
\n and getting the food for each meal and wheeling it down to your
\n building on a trolley, washing up, laying tables etc.  If you
\n are looking for a group venue, it's not a bad place.\n <\/p>\n

\n St Moritz is in the Upper Engadine.  Can't comment on
\n skiing, but can say a few things about the town.  It's
\n quite small, easily walkable, very posh with a very high fur coat
\n count and is pretty expensive!  There are two parts to St
\n Moritz: there's the dorf which means village and this is above
\n the lake.  This is where the posh hotels, restaurants, shops
\n etc are.  St Moritz-Bad is about 2km away southwest down on
\n the lakeshore and is not such a pretty place, lots of concrete
\n flats and other buildings.\n <\/p>\n

\n \"SculptureThe name of St Moritz
\n has an interesting story attached to it: the story told to me was
\n that Maurice (later turned into Moritz) was a Christian and came
\n from Egypt.  He served in the Roman army under Julius Caesar
\n and led a Theban legion for the Roman empire and fought in the
\n Alps.  He refused to obey the order of the Emperor Maximian
\n and sacrifice some Christians to the Roman gods because he was
\n himself a Christian.  On hearing this, Maximian ordered
\n Maurice's regiment to be decimated – i.e. every tenth person
\n killed, and this went on until no-one was left.  And so
\n commanding officer Maurice became a saint.  Legend has it that
\n the rock used by Maurice to lay his head on so that he could be
\n beheaded is at St Moritz.   Like England's St George,
\n St. Maurice is a patron of knights and soldiers.  From the
\n 12th century, due the similarity between his name and Maurus, he
\n was depicted as a Moor, so he became the black saint.  \n <\/p>\n

\n Even after Roman times, St. Moritz was known during the Middle Ages
\n for its mineral springs and healthy climate and it became the first
\n alpine winter sports and tourism centre in Switzerland.  It
\n also hosted two Olympic Winter Games (1928 and 1948.) It became the
\n famous ski and alpine sports centre that it is mainly due to the
\n British, who went over in the 1860s and liked it so much they went
\n back and stayed an entire season, and the word was spread.\n <\/p>\n

\n To get to St Moritz is very easy, you can take a train from
\n Zurich.  I flew from London to Zurich on Easyjet (AKA
\n Sleazyjet) and that was a good price at around £75 including
\n taxes.  Swiss Air and BA all fly there too from the UK but are
\n more expensive.  There is a train station underneath the
\n airport at Zurich and you can take a train from here to the main
\n train station in the centre and go to Chor, change there for St
\n Moritz.  The whole train journey from Zurich took about 3 1\/2
\n hours. \n <\/p>\n

\n There are plenty of taxis outside St Moritz train station and the
\n drivers seem to speak every language in the world between
\n them.  Swiss Italian and Swiss German seem to be the
\n predominant languages – and be warned, whilst many Swiss people are
\n amazing linguists and speak good English throughout, if you were
\n thinking (like me) to practice your German, think again, Swiss
\n German is quite different.\n <\/p>\n

\n Swiss trains are a delight – always on time, clean, and I
\n especially like the double decker trains.  Whilst the airport
\n is non smoking throughout – a fairly recent change, I think, the
\n Swiss do allow smoking on trains, so be careful about which
\n compartment you get into, if you are a non smoker.  I got on
\n an intercity from Lucerne to Zurich and inadvertently sat in a
\n smoking section, which by the time I realised, was too late to move
\n as it was packed full.\n <\/p>\n

\n Buying a Swiss rail pass makes a lot of sense.  I paid £105
\n for a pass that allowed me free travel on three specified
\n days.  The days do not have to be consecutive.  The pass
\n also allows you to receive substantial discounts on other
\n trips.  You can buy rail passes for different lengths of trip.\n <\/p>\n

\n I also went to Lucerne or Luzern.  Beautiful!  It's
\n about 4 hours from St Moritz by train – and only an hour or so by
\n the fast intercity train from Zurich, which also goes direct to the
\n airport as well, which is pretty handy.  It is situated on a
\n lake and has lots of history.  The river Reuss separates the
\n old town from the newer, although that seemed pretty old to me
\n too!  Then it flows into the lake.  The town is also very
\n easy to walk around and was my highlight on this trip to
\n Switzerland.  The train station is very close to the edge of
\n the lake and close to the Art Museum and within easy reach of the
\n hotels by foot.\n <\/p>\n

\n I stayed in the Hotel Krone which is a Best Western and is in the
\n Old Town, it was very nice and has free internet and the people
\n there were very nice.\n <\/p>\n

\n \"bridgeThere are lots
\n of bridges across the River Reuss, it reminded me a little of
\n Ljubljana, especially with some of the dragon symbols, some of my
\n friends said Stockholm.  One of the most famous is the Chapel
\n bridge built in the 14th century as a part of the city's
\n fortifications and named after St. Peter's Chapel, which is
\n located nearby. It has paintings on it including some info on the
\n city's patron saints, St. Leodegar and our friend St.
\n Maurice.  There's also a very splendid 17th century
\n baroque Jesuit church.  I really liked the water spikes that
\n act like a lock  to regulate water levels like in a canal. and
\n you can see the remains of water mills.\n <\/p>\n

\n There are lots of old squares and beautiful buildings with pictures
\n on the walls, red spires and steeples.  The Weinmarkt is one
\n of these old squares, and is by the Hotel Krone – very pretty.
\n There's also a great restaurant, and not too expensive (for
\n Switzerland!) in the cellar of the town hall, or Rat Haus that has
\n its own micro brewery inside – great beer, and good food,
\n especially the Braui special which has lots of different types of
\n pork and sauerkraut.  It is also a good place to go and talk
\n to local people, as everyone seemed really friendly.\n <\/p>\n

\n \"ViewOn my final day in
\n Lucerne, I went to the tourist information centre at the train
\n station and asked where I could go in the mountains.  They
\n suggested a trip to Rigi Kulm, so, using my rail pass, instead of
\n paying 79 Swiss Francs, it cost me 29 Swiss Francs.  It was a
\n great adventure!  I took a boat across Lake Lucerne, and then
\n a funicular or cog wheel train up the mountain to the top of Rigi
\n Kulm, about 1,800m, so not too high, and then the cog wheel train
\n to the half way point and a cable car down to Weggis back down by
\n the lake, and the boat again back to Lucerne.  It was a
\n wonderful half day trip, where we could see above the clouds, the
\n mountain tops poking through, then there was the lake and the green
\n of the alpine pastures leading up to the mountains.  There are
\n a couple of other mountain type trips you can do like this whilst
\n based in Lucerne.\n <\/p>\n

\n Then  I took the train from Lucerne back to Zurich airport,
\n the direct trains run at 10 minutes past the hour and it took about
\n 1 hour.\n <\/p>\n

\n I’d definitely recommend Lucerne as a base for 2\/3 days to explore.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to St Moritz for a week in February – on a course in a place called Randolins in Survetta, a little way outside the town – not skiing. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-main-article","tag-april-2004"],"yoast_head":"\nSt Moritz and Lucerne by Iona Hill - eNewsletter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/globetrotters.co.uk\/newsletter\/st-moritz-and-lucerne-by-iona-hill.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"St Moritz and Lucerne by Iona Hill - 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