Ads

St. Moritz

[moh-rits, maw-, muh-; mawr-its, mohr-]

St. Moritz (German: Sankt Moritz, Romansh: San Murezzan) is an exclusive resort town in the Engadine valley in Switzerland. It is a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. St. Moritz is considered the oldest and one of the most famous winter resorts in the world. Due to its favorable location residents enjoy over 300 days of sunshine a year. Every winter this alpine village hosts the "White Turf" horse race on the frozen Lake St. Moritz attended by the international Upper class. The official languages are Romansh and German.

Popular pastimes include skiing and hiking, and nearby there is also the world famous Cresta Run toboggan course.

The year-round population is 5600, with some 3000 seasonal employees supporting hotels and rental units with a total of 13,000 beds.

Since the registration of a new trademark by the tourist office in 1987, St. Moritz is also known as Top of the World.

Sport

St. Moritz has been the host city for the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics. It also hosted the 1934, 1974 and 2003 Alpine Skiing World Championships. It is one of three cities that have hosted the Winter Olympic Games twice, the others being Innsbruck, Austria and Lake Placid, New York in the United States. Additionally, it has hosted the FIBT World Championships (bobsleigh and skeleton racing) a record 21 times.

Tourist attractions

The Segantini Museum: dedicated to Giovanni Segantini, a painter that lived the last 5 years of his life in Engadine painting "nature, life, death".
The bobsled run: a very rare natural bob sleigh. It is typically up and running by mid December each year
Viewing the glacier landscape: there are a number of notable vistas. Much can be seen by descending from Diavolezza to the Morteratsch Glacier.
The 3300 metres high Piz Corvatsch with its ice cave and its eight-kilometer long ski slope down to St.Moritz-Bad.

In popular culture

St. Moritz was mentioned in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger as a skiing resort. Also mentioned in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.
In the Ian Fleming novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service the villain Blofeld uses Piz Gloria, a mountaintop facility in a resort near St. Moritz, as his base of operations. The real Piz Gloria is in another part of Switzerland.
St. Moritz is mentioned in the song Where do you go to my lovely by Peter Sarstedt and the song I Wouldn't Dream Of It by the New Zealand band Split Enz.
St. Moritz is also mentioned in the book of the Belgian writer Aster Berkhof named 'Veel geluk, professor!'
St. Moritz is also a brand of menthol cigarettes distributed by British American Tobacco.