An Old Mangle – Or What Was Planned and What Was Flattened in the Val Müstair

Graubünden's railway landscape would look quite different if all the early railroad projects had been realized: there would be a Greina Railway, a Splügen Railway, a Tödi Railway, a Lukmanier Railway, a Septimer Railway, and an Engadin-Orient Railway line. The latter would have taken passengers from Chur via the Engadin and through the Val Müstair to Trieste, and from there even further, all the way to India.

If the Orient Railway had been built, who knows whether the maungua, now on display at the Chasa Jaura Valley Museum in the Val Müstair, might have been used in a station hotel. In any case, a maungua – the Rhaeto-Romansh word for mangle – is a device used to flatten pieces of fabric or laundry by applying pressure. The mangle displayed in the Chasa Jaura Museum in Valchava is stylish, crafted from beech and oak wood. However, it would have been a little too narrow for flattening hotel guests' shirts. The mangle, dating from the second half of the 19th century, was probably used for flattening ribbons.

Apropos Orient Railway: there actually is something of a station hotel in the Val Müstair, where there are no railway lines: the Münsterhof. The hotel was opened in 1887 in the hope that the arrival of the railroad would soon increase the number of guests visiting the valley. That did not happen, but the Val Müstair, the Münsterhof and the Chasa Jaura are definitely worth a visit.