Mark Mason

Nira Alpina, St Moritz: A cool Alpine hotel that’s perfect for the under-tens

No, I couldn't believe it, either

Activity break: Nira Alpina also offers kite-surfing [Getty Images/iStock/Shutterstock] 
issue 16 August 2014

It’s a terrible moment, the realisation that you’ve spawned a monster. Parenthood, it becomes clear, has wiped stylish holidays off the agenda for a good few years. Somewhere like St Moritz, for instance, won’t thank you for polluting its elegant slopes with Bratbot 5.1. Then you stumble across Nira Alpina, and your desperation disappears.

The hotel, its website claims, puts ‘fun before formality’. My partner and I took great delight in tiring out our young son (and ourselves) with the various activities on offer. The ‘high ropes’ course involved walking, wobbling and zip-wiring our way through the Alpine treetops, learning en route that vertigo hits the over-forties far worse than the under-tens. A family cupcake-making lesson in the hotel’s bakery was overseen by the pastry chef. The fact he looked like Javier Bardem kept one of us happy, while the copious amounts of butter in the icing proved popular all round.

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