Muottas Muragl – view of the mountains in the Engadin

What you only get to see in the following pictures in the form of snow flurries is the mercilessly whistling wind, which hardly let us put one step in front of the other. At first glance, everything seemed so peaceful. It’s a bright blue Monday morning in the Upper Engadine. As if he couldn’t muddy any water. Therefore, we were a bit surprised that we did not encounter a queue in front of the ticket booth at the Punt Muragl valley station. I was probably the only one who had only studied the sun symbol, but not the wind speeds of the weather forecast.

By train to the Muottas Muragl

The historic funicular railway at Punt Muragl serves the route up to the hotel and restaurant Muottas Muragl at 2456 m above sea level every half hour. There are several reasons why Muottas Muragl stands out from the crowd of excursion destinations in the Engadine. On the one hand, the excursion mountain is one of the first vantage points in the Upper Engadine to be developed for tourism. Logically, the pearls were already picked out back then and so the funicular has been rattling up and down the steep route for over 100 years. Secondly, there are no ski lifts at the top. The mountain belongs to pedestrians and nature lovers. If you come up here, you will find peace. This has been appreciated by numerous famous painters and writers. Segantini’s former hut, for example, is located not far from the summit. Thirdly, even after 100 years, pioneering work is still being done here. As part of a complete renovation in 2009/10, the hotel was converted into the first plus-energy hotel in the Alpine region.

When we reached the top, we were really left breathless. Not primarily because of the undeniably impressive panorama over the lake plateau of the Upper Engadine, but because of the fierce gusts of wind. “Hmmm, that’s going to be an exhausting seven kilometers on the Philosopher’s Trail,” was my first thought. After a short walk through the snow – half of the way we walked backwards so that the wind didn’t blow in our faces all the time – we stopped the exercise. The snow could still glisten so temptingly under the steel-blue sky. Instead, we went to safety behind the glass panes of the restaurant and ordered a hot chocolate and a Graubünden nut cake. Instead of dealing with philosophical thoughts, we now indulged in sweet happiness. Also good.

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