Lej da Staz at sunset

For a long while I have planned to photograph Lej da Staz in St Moritz - the ideal time would be in autumn with the autumn colours and misty mornings, or in winter. Gavin and I tried to get some autumn dates to work for us to return to Switzerland but it doesn't look promising, so at the last minute we decided to visit it now in summer, for sunset and sunrise even though they are tricky times in summer. 

This morning we drove through the Fluela Pass and down the winding Grand Tour route to the Engadine Valley. Our first stop was Susch, then on to Guarda which is well known for its very pretty painted buildings (see extra). We walked through the village admiring the buildings and then had a cappuccino there before setting off again to Zuoz, another village known for its beautiful buildings. Many of the buildings there date back to the 1500's and unfortunately there was a lot of restoration and construction going on there so it was very noisy with construction vehicles. We had a delicious chicken caesar salad for lunch at a restaurant there, sitting outside in the sunshine. Today was hot and sunny, a really lovely summer day.

When we got to St Moritz in the afternoon we checked into our hotel, then went out to explore the lakes. We visited Silvaplana lake where there were hundreds of campers and the lake was full of kite surfers and wind foils, hundreds of them! We initially thought it must be some kind of festival going on but no, I think this is just a very popular spot as it catches the wind on the wide open lake and it was certainly very windy there. 

We realised that you cannot drive to Lej da Staz and it is about a 30 minute walk from where you can park the car. We decided to get take away pizza for supper which we would eat near the lake as with sunset being at 9pm and having to walk out to the lake it meant we had no time to sit somewhere to eat dinner. We got delicious pizzas from Riccardo's, who serve gluten free pizzas and they also made mine without any cheese as I cannot have lactose. It was a delicious pizza despite the lack of cheese! 

We walked out to the lake, and then waited for sunset. It was not a spectacular sunset but it is such a pretty lake that I managed to get some photos that I like. Xena had great fun chasing after fish in the water and exploring the marshy grasses - she got filthy but luckily she went right in to the water and so washed herself clean again.

Now we are back at the hotel, I am not sure I will get up for the sunrise as it means a very early start with the extra time required to walk out to the lake. The road leads all the way to the lake but for some reason cars are forbidden from driving there.