Beena Nadeem and her family undertake a digital ‘detox’ in the mountains of St Moritz
?Come on, Lillia! If you don?t hurry up and take your skis off, mummy will be late for her spa treatment.? My partner Ian is laughing at this outburst of pretension, though in a mountain resort where a bottle of water can set you back 9 CHF, surely the option of a post-ski spa visit is one?s right" The day before we had spent four hours on the train from Zurich. The hotel?s chauffeur was waiting to collect us from the station, whisking us off to a fairytale hotel complete with a ballroom-cum-restaurant, 20-metre infinity pool and spa, kids? club and outdoor ice-skating.
Grand Hotel Kronenhof is just 6km from St Moritz, in a little slice of utopia called Pontresina. On arrival we decide to embrace the spirit of Switzerland, where wellbeing is taken seriously, and undertake a family ?detox?: a week without a single flickering blue screen or social media update, set in the silent mountains, our phones and iPads locked in the belly of the hotel?s safe, and our rooms emptied of everything electrical.
After a whole day?s skiing, I was grateful for my impending spa treatment ? a delicious detox bath and massage. Afterwards, I settle into the serenity of a waterbed overlooking a mountain panorama. As a dusky peach light scatters across the mountaintops, I wonder how long this moment might last. The answer, as it turns out, was not very long. As I glance across the pool, I see ...