We slept in today knowing the weather forecast for today was not that great. The forecast called for a 100% chance of rain, not leaving much of a chance for the possibility that the sun might appear. Our first planned activity for this morning was to attend the 10:00 AM Mass, so we could not do anything before that anyway except eat our breakfast downstairs in the hotel’s restaurant.
We got ready and headed down to the breakfast area at the hotel. The breakfast is very nice, they have a large selection of items, but many are not typical American Breakfast choices. There are a lot of breads and cheeses, along with different types of sliced meats. There were some scrambled eggs and bacon, as well as sausages, but that was about as “American” as the breakfast was.
After breakfast, I spent some time trying to figure out where the Mass at 10:00 AM was actually taking place. On the Pontresina Catholic Church website, there was a schedule with a description about an ecumenical service at 10:00 AM that was being held at a location called The Rondo, and not at the church itself. I found out that The Rondo is a cultural center nearby to our hotel, just a block or two down the hill. Apparently, this was some type of special event.
We walked down to the Rondo before 10:00 AM and once inside, found out from a priest we talked with that there was no Mass here this morning. It was a discussion group between Catholics and Evangelicals. If we wanted to go to Mass, we would need to attend the Mass this evening at 5:30 PM at the Catholic Church. Apparently, this was being held today because it was a special day commemorating open discussions between the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church in Switzerland.
We walked back up to the hotel to try and figure out a plan now that we were not going to Mass this morning. We packed up our gear and headed down to the train station. Unfortunately, we just missed the hourly train that headed in the direction we wanted to go to visit the Diavolezza, a large cable car that goes to the top of the Diavolezza Peak, which has great views of the glacier. There seemed to be another train in about 20 minutes, but it was the panoramic Bernina Express train, which usually requires a reservation. However, there were other people waiting with us that were obviously not going on the scenic train, they all had hiking gear.
That train arrived, and we could see there were regular cars that were not for the special panoramic journey, and the other people waiting there got into those normal train cars. It appeared to say on the train that it was heading to our stop, the Bernina Diavolezza stop, but when Stephanie asked the conductor out on the platform, he said it did not stop there. Everything we saw seemed to indicate it did, and maybe he misunderstood our question, but we elected to just wait for the next train to be sure. It was only about 20 more minutes before it arrived anyway.
Lower Diavolezza Cable Car Station
Our train arrived and we traveled about 20 minutes to our stop. When we got off the train, it was now raining pretty hard. We headed to the cable car station just up the hill from the train station and waited on the next cable car to return from the top of the mountain. This is a two car cable car system, and the cars are quite large, probably holding 50-60 people if full. Due to the weather, it was not going to be full today, but we were surprised that there were about 15 other people heading to the top with us. This ride was included in our Engadin Card, so even if the weather was bad, it was not an out of pocket expense, all the rides are unlimited during the validity period for the Card. The cars leave every 20 minutes, so we did not have long to wait before we boarded.
Diavolezza Cable Car
And yes, the weather was bad, it was quite foggy heading up, but slightly clearer at the top station. The wind was blowing and there was a snow/rain mix falling. We headed outside for a couple of photos of the glacier that was just barely visible through the clouds, rain and snow. It was cold and windy, and basically miserable to be outside, so we did not stay out long before heading back into the station. We should have brought more warm clothes to wear under our rain jackets, the wind and humidity made it seem really cold outside, especially at this altitude.
We visited the gift store and found a couple of glass Christmas Ornaments, the exact same ones we had seen in other stores in Lucerne and Zermatt, but here, they were much less expensive, so we purchased them.
Not Much of a View Today
It was just too cold to stay at the top, so we decided to head down and catch the train to St. Moritz to just look around, and do a little shopping. Unfortunately the cable car was late leaving, and it took a few minutes at the bottom to stop swinging sideways from the wind to be able to get into the station, so we missed the train. We could see the train leave just as we were arriving at the bottom cable car station.
The hourly train connections caused us to waste more time waiting for the next train. It was raining even harder, and we changed our plan to skip going to St. Moritz and just head back to Pontresina for some lunch and to go to the hot tub at the hotel pool area. Since we were going back into town, we decided to take the bus since it dropped us off up by our hotel instead of at the train station where we would arrive if we took the train, saving us an uphill climb.
The bus and the train leave at almost the same time, but the bus is actually quicker. Well, maybe sometimes. We kept having to wait at rail crossings for the train to pass by, then we would pass it on the roadway, only to be stopped the next time the railroad crossed the road. This happened three times.
Our Lunch Today
Eventually the train tracks headed away from the road and we were not playing the passing game any longer. We got off at our stop and headed toward a restaurant Stephanie had seen yesterday while we were walking down to the train station. It was a few blocks away, but it was all downhill.
We entered the restaurant and had to show our Swiss Vaccine Certificates and ID to be allowed to eat inside. Of course, outside eating was not an option today with the rain. We were seated and ordered some Bruschetta and a flat bread served with ham, cheese and some other garnishes. We also had a glass of wine with lunch. It was quite good. We opted to pay with cash since we needed to spend some of our excess Swiss Francs. We head to Austria in two days, and they use the Euro for currency.
We headed back to the hotel and changed into our swim suits and put on our special hotel robes and slippers. We headed to the inside pool area, which was a little difficult to get to because we could not find out how to get to the pool deck access doors. We eventually found them by going through the Spa area. Unfortunately, the hot tub was closed because of Covid, so we just sat in some lounge chairs and drank the cup of wine we had each brought from the room.
Hanging Out At The Indoor Pool Area
We decided to check out the spa area since the hotel seemed really empty, a lot of people had already left today since it was Sunday, and many of those guests were only here for the weekend. We spent some time in a couple of special steam rooms, one was really hot and steamy, and the other was less hot and very aromatic. We were not sure if these were “no suits” allowed areas like the sauna. There was one man in the sauna when we passed it, which we knew was a nude only area from the signs. Since we saw no one else, I opted to remove my suit before entering the steam rooms, and just wrapped up in a towel. Stephanie went in with her suit on, but also wrapped in a towel. Stephanie did not want to be in the hot steam rooms very long because she did not want to have to shower and redo her hair before going to Mass tonight at 5:30 PM. She headed over to a quiet area room with vibrating massage chairs, and I stayed in the steam rooms, alternating back and forth between the two. There was also a multi stream shower there to use to cool off, so I did that a couple of times because of the heat. No one ever came back to that area while I was there.
The man eventually left the sauna, so I decided to give that a try, wrapped in my towel of course. I only stayed in there for a few minutes, it was quite hot. I used the shower outside the sauna to go ahead and bathe since it also had body wash. I was about done when Stephanie arrived and we left to go back to the room. We just relaxed for a while and Stephanie took a short nap while I worked on the blog for yesterdays eventful journey.
The Catholic Church
We got ready for Church and headed back out into the rainy, cold weather. It was just a couple of minutes walk to the church and we headed inside. It was a nice Mass, but of course, all in German. We used Stephanie’s phone to read the Mass readings in English. There were only about 12 people attending this Sunday night Mass on a rainy, cold evening.
After Mass, we headed back to the same Pizzeria we had eaten at last night, the Nostra Pizzeria that is part of the Hotel Engandinerhof. We were still full from lunch, so we knew we could split a pizza and have enough to eat versus going somewhere for two full size meals. We ordered a ham and mushroom pizza and had a bottle of red wine from Montepulciano, Italy, with our dinner It was the perfect amount of food.
Our Dinner Wine
We headed back to the room and washed some clothes in the sink. Since it is cool here, we have a little heat on in the room via the hot water radiators, and that makes things dry faster. We will have at least tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night for the clothes to dry before we leave for here Innsbruck. We were then able to finally relax, watching the BBC channel on our TV, the only English speaking channel we have.
We also looked at the latest Covid entry requirements for Austria, which is where we head on Tuesday. According to the latest rules we found online, we do not have to submit any type of travel request form since we have been in Switzerland for over 10 days prior to our entry into Austria, and we have our proof of vaccination using the Swiss Covid Certificate, which is also accepted in Austria.
We headed to sleep about 10:30 PM.