In our second day around Tiefencastel, we did a long hike from Bivio to Tinizong (and, in the end, Savognin) over Alp Flix. Bivio is a remote village at the end of a valley that leads to St. Moritz (over the Julier Pass) or into the Bergell Valley (Val Bregaglia, over the Septimer Pass).
The weather was absolutely brilliant, with no clouds to be seen. We quickly climbed up to the “Kanonensattel” and down on the other side to the Alp Flix, a broad plateau with a wonderful view on the surrounding mountains. In the restaurant “Piz Platta” we had an excellent lunch and moved onwards to Lake Flix and slowly down the valley, where we reached Tinizong after 5 ½ hours.
We were so enthusiastic about the area that we decided to stay one more day in the region and thus walked on to Savognin, where the tourism office offered the necessary internet connection to check and arrange everything for the panorama hike in the Val Bregaglia.
A yurt. In the Swiss Alps? Curiouser and curiouser...
The bus back to Tiefencastel was late, and so we missed the connection to Alvaschein, the small village nearby where our hotel was located. Which brings me to the explanation of how we ended up there in the first place.
Hotels in Switzerland are not cheap. We do have the famous „Generalabonnement“, the amazingly expensive ticket that allows you to use almost the whole Swiss public transport for free. Exceptions are, unfortunately, some of the cable cars and postal cars (busses) leading to mountain tops, where you only get a discount.
But even then some of the regions in Switzerland still take 4-6 hours to reach, so doing hikes in the more remote regions without staying overnight is difficult. Unfortunately, those “remote” regions (St. Moritz, Davos, etc) are also the places where even youth hostels regularly charge more than 60 USD per person in a double room, and more than 40 USD for a bed in the common room.
The scenic route
I was thus very happy when I discovered a hotel offering double rooms for less than 100 USD near Tiefencastel – so happy, actually, that I overlooked the fact that the hotel was located in nearby Alvaschein – half an hour (or three quarters, if you take the scenic route by the church of Saint Peter in Mistail) by foot from Tiefencastel. And walking was almost the only option to get there, as the bus connection between the two villages mainly serves as the school bus for pupils. It didn’t work at all on Saturdays and Sundays, except if you called an hour ahead and requested them to do a particular trip. On the other hand, we went there to hike, so avoiding a hotel just because you have to walk there would’ve kind of missed the point, no?
The former post office in Alvaschein
Apart from the lack of public transport, Alvaschein is actually a very pleasant village with beautiful, old buildings and great location overlooking the valley. It also boasts an extremely talkative and sociable bus driver. He was very surprised to hear that we were staying in this small village and proceeded to shout “Alvaschein, Alvaschein!” whenever he saw us – which was surprisingly often, given the meager bus schedule.
Staying there also granted us insights into local social life (as the advertisement of the hotel announced: “get to know the local population of Alvaschein”) and allowed us to experience a form of accommodation that was as close to home stays as is possible in a Swiss hotel. The “Alpenblick” has three rooms with two beds each on the second floor, while the first floor served as the only restaurant/bar in town. And it is indeed the place where the local population (which probably does not exceed 150 people) meets in the evening to have a beer.
Near the bus stop
Thus our dinner was accompanied by conversations in the dialect of the Graubünden. While we were reading the menu, the mainly male local population discussed hunting, or, to be more precise, how to prepare deer meat. Once we had ordered our “Röschti” (traditional Swiss food, similar to hashed browns), the topic moved on to a fishing contest and the giant fish another local had caught. We were still waiting for our dinner when two of them started arguing over a recently built fence. And when we dug in on our Röschti, they were finally discussing the two German horses which had escaped the same day and galloped on the highway until the police had captured them. There was clearly a lot going on in Alvaschein.
In short: it was a quaint, but pleasant stay there.
