June
2008
a ski-town in the off-season: Day 180
St. Moritz, twice host of the winter Olympic games, was our host today. World-renowned for its skiing, frequented by celebrities from all over, this alpine town welcomes families and pensioners as well – just ask the Hotel Laudinella.
A three-star complex with a bar, a few conference rooms, and a wide range of casual-dining restaurants, the Hotel Laudinella offers basic comfort and family-affordable prices. In ski season, they house skiers, and have a series of rooms at ground level where guests can find tools for ski and snowboard repair and maintenance, storage for boots, storage for skis, and storage for boards. In the off-season they house tour groups, usually older folks, primarily from Japan, visiting for the scenery and photo opportunities.
After all the four, five and five-star-plus hotels we’ve visited, the Laudinella is something of a surprise. It is clean, spacious, with very gracious staff, but it is also plain and sparse compared to the luxury places we’ve been frequenting. The bar and adjacent seating area feels like a cross between my grandparents’ basement (they have a rec room with blond wood paneling and a dark-red formica bar) and a student lounge, definitely a 1950s/60s feel. Instead of framed paintings or artwork, a few posters of old skiing ads have been taped up. The bedrooms have basic furniture – bed, armoire, nightstands, tv, dresser and/or writing desk – and pragmatic carpets and linens. You’ll have to bring your own soap and shampoo. The hallways are mostly unadorned, though here and there the walls have sketches reminiscent of cave paintings re-imagined in middle school art class – a rayed sun, various wild animals, line drawings with a few pastel colors.
The restaurants are non-smoking, though there is a smoking lounge. The pizza place was very inviting and smelled wonderful, but it was too early for food. (Other options are a French brasserie, an Asian restaurant, a traditional-fare room with raclette and fondue, a general restaurant (usually with buffet service), and a regular bar.
The hotel’s quiet flair, however, is music and art. Down a hallway and past two computers with internet service for guest use, there are rehearsal rooms and performance rooms. Here musicians, choirs, and singers come to study, practice, and perform. The hotel also hosts an event schedule of music, film, and art exhibitions, supplementing its accommodation revenue with ticket sales.
As has sometimes happened before on this trip, we wound up cutting the day short. The weather up in St. Moritz is still quite cool, and today there was a truly cold wind, and we mostly came dressed for the warmer temperatures further down the mountains. So instead of a scenic walk around the lake, we took an earlier train back to Chur and enjoyed a little free time in a town where we were appropriately attired!
