Why ski in ... Switzerland?

By Arnie Wilson, editor of Ski+board magazine

A wit once observed that if you ironed Switzerland it would be quite a big country. Not only is it home to some of the greatest peaks in the Alps, it also boasts some of the world’s finest ski resorts. It’s a clean, efficient country, the trains really do run on time, and the Swiss make fabulously gooey cakes.

Many Swiss ski hotels started life as sanatoriums where early “health tourists” attempted to cure themselves of the pandemic of the day: tuberculosis. Among them was the wife of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. During many visits, Conan-Doyle became something of a skiing pioneer, writing about his tour “on ski” over the Maienfeld Furka Pass down to Arosa – the first Englishman known to have embarked on such an adventure.

The British have enjoyed a long and happy relationship with the Swiss, the two nations together inventing the modern concept of winter sports holidays. It started in St Moritz with the so-called “Badrutt wager”.

Joahannes Badrutt, owner of the Kulm Hotel in St Moritz, approached a party of British clients in the autumn of 1864 and persuaded them that winter in the Alps was not only pleasant, but “a good deal less cold than in London”.

He told them that on sunny days it is “so warm that we go about in shirt-sleeves”. Then came the famous invitation: “This winter you shall be my guests at the Kulm. You will not pay anything for your stay.” If they didn’t enjoy winter in St Moritz, he even offered to pay their travelling expenses back to England.

Needless to say, the Brits remained for the entire winter. An entry in the Kulm’s visitors’ book records: “Far from finding it cold, the heat of the sun is so intense at times that sunshades were indispensable. The brilliance of the sun, the blueness of the sky and the clearness of the atmosphere quite surprised us.”

And so it began – Britain’s “special relationship” with Switzerland, which continues to this day.

Find the best resorts in Switzerland to reach by train. Find ski holidays by train to Switzerland with rail travel included, or combine several resorts on a Swiss ski safari.