There are places in the Upper Engadine where the light behaves differently, and La Punt Chamues-ch is one of them. The valley here is high, around 1,700 metres, wide and flat-floored, with the young Inn river meandering through meadows and larch woods, and the air has a dry, thin brightness that makes distant peaks look sharp. The village is a cluster of traditional Engadine houses with thick walls, deep-set windows and sgraffito decoration scratched into pale plaster, and the language spoken here is Romansh, one of Switzerland's four national languages, in its local Puter form.
The road you came on, the Albula Pass, climbs to 2,315 metres from the Bergün side, and its character is quieter and calmer than many other Swiss passes. It is not as busy as the Flüela or the Julier, and its curves are rhythmic, with open views of rock and alpine pasture, and the surface is usually good. On the far side, you descend into the Engadine on a road that opens suddenly into this big, bright valley. Alongside, the Rhaetian Railway runs through the Albula tunnel under the pass, part of a line that is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
La Punt is close to Zuoz, a more elegant village with a boarding school, and to Samedan, the larger town of the valley, six kilometres away, where you can find fuel, supermarkets and a hospital. The valley is also a place for Nusstorte, the walnut and caramel tart of Graubünden, which you should try with a strong coffee. The Engadine's reputation for sunshine is deserved, with more than three hundred days of it each year, though that does not mean warmth, and mornings can be cold even in summer.
The pass is closed in winter, normally from November until late spring, and snow can fall at any time of year at the top, so carry something warm. In autumn the larches turn gold, and the valley glows in a way that is hard to forget. Riders who have come over the Albula often stop here to rest, and an hour at a table outside a café, with the Inn rippling by and the peaks around, is a very good use of an afternoon.