Graubünden is the southwestern area of Switzerland bordering Italy and Austria. This area was once unknown to wintertime tourists until an enterprising hotelier offered several summer guests free accommodation if they returned in the winter. The time was 1864 and the place was St. Moritz and the rest is history, so they say. Now St. Moritz is probably the most famous winter resort and is the place to be for the rich jet-setters.

We arrived in early May, 2002 in the Graubünden area from Italy. Our last stop in Italy was just before the border to take this picture of the Swiss mountains above the fertile green valley. Although the area is quite mountainous, many of the main roads follow wide valleys such as this one, allowing us to travel great distances below the snow level. 

We headed west through the Swiss National Park which is heavily wooded and supports a variety of summertime outdoor activities. Nearby the town of Zernez was inviting and appeared to have sufficient accommodations for all those summertime visitors.

We then headed south to St. Moritz - not because we are rich jet-setters (on the contrary, only poor motorcyclists), but because “its there.” We quickly found the place to be almost deserted, as this is the off season between the winter and the summer. The tourist office was quite helpful with the details of hotels in the area, then another (smaller) list of the ones that were open. We found one at the very top of our price range but at the bottom of their price range (and remember, this is off season).  There is no way we could even think of staying here in high season. However, the setting is quite beautiful as the main town (St. Moritz Dorf) is situated on a hill above a lake, completely surrounded by the Alps. Our hotel was down in the valley (St. Moritz Bad) with the rest of the tourist hotels and souvenir shops. The picture above is taken a few blocks from our hotel, looking up at St. Moritz Dorf on the hillside. We can imagine the views from those hotels are quite spectacular. Of course, if you want to go shopping, all the designer names are here, with prices as glitzy as the fashions.

The next day we awoke to clear blue skies and freezing temperatures (28 degrees F or -2 degrees C) with hard frost on the bags and seats of the bikes. So a leisurely breakfast before hitting the road was in order, to make sure we didn’t run into any icy roads. 

Just west of St. Moritz we climbed steeply up to Julierpass at 2284 meters where there was plenty of snow, but thankfully clear, dry roads (right). We dropped altitude just as quickly on the other side, then enjoyed a leisurely ride through the lush green mountains and valleys on our way toward Liechtenstein. We stayed on the secondary roads all the way and enjoyed our ride immensely.

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