Grand Hotel des Bains Kempinski St. Moritz

The Grand Hotel des Bains has the bones of the original St. Moritz: a Belle Époque building of the 1860s, 1,813 metres up in the Engadin, standing at the foot of the cable car. That settles the question most Alpine hotels leave open, which is how far one must travel to reach the mountain. Here, not at all. Skis go on outside the door; in summer the walking trails start from the same spot.

The 205 rooms and suites are warm and Alpine in manner, with the Alpine Suites for longer stays. The real weight of the hotel lies in its 2,800 square metres of Alpine Spa: four saunas, a heated pool indoors and another outside, steaming against the snow. Neora cooks modern Greek, Les Saisons keeps the grand dining room, and the house opens for two seasons, winter and summer, closing in between as a proper resort should.

The mountain begins at the door

The hotel stands at the foot of the cable car, which changes the arithmetic of a St. Moritz day. Skiers are on the mountain minutes after breakfast and back for lunch without a transfer; in summer the same door opens onto hiking trails and the long, bright Engadin afternoons. At 1,813 metres the air is thin and clear, and the light has a hardness found nowhere lower down. The hotel keeps two seasons, one for snow and one for green, and closes in between, which is how a mountain grand hotel should behave.

Rooms, suites and Alpine Suites

There are 205 rooms and suites, and the Alpine Suites at the top of the range are made for the guest who intends to stay a fortnight, with living space for a party returning from the slopes. The interiors take their cue from the mountains, warm rather than gilded, with nothing that competes with the window. This is a nineteenth-century building with Belle Époque proportions, and the bedrooms carry the height and the calm of that period. After a day at altitude, a room like this is not an afterthought; it is half the reason for coming.

The Alpine Spa, then dinner

The Alpine Spa runs to 2,800 square metres, with four saunas, a heated indoor pool, cryotherapy for the brave and a heated outdoor pool that steams in the cold with the mountains standing over it. It is the natural end to a day outside and, on a snowbound afternoon, a reasonable alternative to one. Dinner follows at Neora, which cooks modern Greek at altitude with some confidence, or in the Grand Restaurant Les Saisons, the formal room; Crazy Pizza and the Park Cafe cover the evenings that want less ceremony, and the Lobby Bar closes the day.