Engadin
The Engadine is protected by high mountain ranges on all sides and is famous for its sunny climate, beautiful landscapes and outdoor activities.
Especially in touristic and advertising contexts, the meaning of the name is widely given as "garden of the Inn", presumably based on an incorrect folk etymology involving the Italian word giardino.
[7] The Romansh languages retain descendants of Latin hortus to refer to a garden, namely üert or iert, and not the ultimately Germanic loanword found in modern-day French and Italian.
[8] The Engadine is connected by the Julier, Albula, and Flüela Passes and the Vereina Tunnel to the northern part of Switzerland and the rest of the canton of Grisons.
To the southwestern side, the Maloja Pass drops precipitously down to the Italian spoken Val Bregaglia (German: Bergell) and then over the Swiss-Italian border further down to Chiavenna (325 m (1,066 ft)), and thence southwards to Como.
[8] The highest mountain in the wider area of the Engadine – and in the Eastern Alps – is Piz Bernina, which is 4,049 metres (13,284 ft) high and 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southeast of St. Moritz.
[8] The red trains by Rhaetian Railways (RhB) connects St. Moritz with Samedan and runs mainly on a north–south axis via the Albula Tunnel to the north and connects the Upper Engadine via Filisur and Thusis with Chur, the capital of the canton and consequently with the rest of Switzerland, and to the south via the Bernina Pass (2,253 m (7,392 ft), the highest traverse of a train in Europe) through the Val Bernina on its northern side and the Swiss but Italian spoken Val Poschiavo on its southern side with Tirano in Italy.
Regular Swiss PostBus lines connects the Upper Engadine with the Val Bregaglia, Chiavenna in Italy, and even further to Lugano in Switzerland again in the west.
Here the villages are no longer located on the valley floor, with the exception of Zernez, but higher up on sunny terraces formed during glacial periods.
[10] To the north, another train route connects the Lower Engadine with Klosters (and Davos) in the Prätigau via the recently built Vereina Tunnel.
Regular bus services connects Scuol also via Martina and the Austrian Pfunds with the Landeck-Zams in the Tyrolian Upper Inn Valley (German: (Tiroler) Oberinntal).
PostBus Switzerland also connects the main valley from Zernez with the Val Müstair or even further to the South-Tyrolian Mals, and by an Italian bus service back to the Lower Engadine via Martina, or vice versa.
Most place signs in both the Upper and Lower Engadine show both languages (German/Italian and Romansh), e.g. St. Moritz - San Murezzan, Sils - Segl, Celerina - Schlarigna.
Typical black and red Engadine dress is used by the townspeople and the horses are decorated with plumage and trimmings in addition to the bells.
This regional cuisine is characterized by the use of selected local spices which have the rare ability to infuse a dish with a certain Engadine taste.
In general, the basic ingredients of the dishes are quite elementary, using potatoes and meat because the Engadine farmers of former times had a hard daily working life.
