Sils / Segl

5km/3mi southwest of Surlej, on the road to the Majola pass, lying to the left of the road between the Silvaplana lake (Silvaplana See, 1,794 m/5,886ft; area 2.6 sq. km/1 sq. mi, depth 77 m/253ft) and the Silser See (Romansch Lej da Segl, 1,797 m/5,896ft; area 4.2 sq. km/2 sq. mi), is the popular summer and winter sports resort of Sils (Romansch Segl).

This is in two parts: Sils Maria (1,795 m-5,891ft; the "Maria" is actually a corruption of a word meaning "farm"), the main tourist attraction at the mouth of the Val Fex, and Sils Baseglia at the outflow of the River Inn from the Silser See. In both parts of Sils there are elegant houses in the style of the Engadine. Sils Maria has a Baroque church (1764), and beside the Edelweiss Hotel is a modest museum devoted to Nietzsche, who spent the summer months here from 1881 to 1889 (commemorative tablet). Sils Baselgia has a church dating from 1448. From both parts of Sils there are pleasant footpaths (15minutes) to the wooded peninsula of Chasté (1,838 m/6,030ft; nature reserve), with scanty remains of an old castle and a Nietzsche quotation carved in the rock. On the southeast shore of the Silser See (45-minute walk) lies the hamlet of Isola (inn), which is abandoned in winter: behind it, in the gorge of the Fedozbach, is a beautiful waterfall. From here it is another 45-minute walk to the Majola pass.