Bronze Age Celts already prized the mineral spring at the heart of St. Moritz, leaving behind a 3,500-year-old spring catchment basin now displayed at the town’s Engadine Museum, and centuries later the Renaissance physician Paracelsus praised its waters as among Europe’s most healing. High society had been making the journey to soak in the springs since the early 1800s when hotelier Johannes Badrutt made an unusual wager in 1864: he invited his English summer guests to return in winter and promised to cover their travel costs if they didn’t enjoy it.
They stayed on past their planned departure, and the Grand Hotel des Bains, built that same year at the spring’s source, became a foundation stone of Alpine winter tourism. Renovations in 1887 gave the building a northern Mediterranean look, corner towers were enlarged in 1906, and the Cà d’Oro dining room, now Michelin-starred, was added in 1927. Guests can still reach the original mineral spring through a fountain in the hotel’s spa.
