2019-03-01 Business Traveller

businesstraveller.com MARCH 2019

DESTINATIONS

T

he Alps in summer are magical. Looking up

to the mountains as dawn breaks, the higher

peaks are like a painted backdrop against a

pale, cloudless sky, and as the temperature

rises and the valleys get the sun, the villages

and towns begin to bustle and their sounds

carry through the clear Alpine air.

You’d expect them to be overrun in the warmer months,

but in a strange reversal of fortune, Alpine resorts that

once relied on summer visitors for income to keep them

going through the long and inhospitable winters now find

themselves far busier during the winter months.

That turnaround began in 1864, when, as the story

would have it, Johannes Badrutt sat by the fire in the

Kulm hotel in St Moritz with four English holiday guests

and enthused about the resort in winter. He called it “a

paradise on earth”. The Englishmen, used

to dark, cold winters, did not believe

him, and so the conversation led to the

legendary bet – Badrutt suggested that

the four should return in December

and, if they did not enjoy their stay, he

would reimburse the travel expenses. The

men returned – and stayed until Easter.

Badrutt won his bet, and winter tourism

was launched.

Roll forward 150 years, and the

situation has led to a pricing anomaly. To

attract visitors in the summer, rates are

up to 50 per cent lower than in the peak

winter season. It means mere mortals can

experience and enjoy some of the best

hotels in Europe at a price that matches

what they’d be paying at far lesser resorts

on the European coast at the same

time of the year. And without the crowds. And with the

mountains. And with that fresh air. And, and, and...

It’s not all staring at the sky, however. There are myriad

activities on offer, some at an additional charge, others for

free. Walking or hiking, depending on your appetite for

exercise, is largely free, not least since in the summer many

hotels offer complimentary lift passes and local transport.

It means you can take the cable car to the top of the

mountain, walk around, have a fabulous long lunch on

the mountain (that’s the bit that definitely isn’t free) and

then, if feeling energetic, walk down part or all of the way,

or just let the cable car take the strain. However you do it,

in the evening you can talk of your tour of the lakelands of

the Upper Engadine without mentioning the 2,000-metre

“help” you took to get there and back. →

27

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:

View of Piz da Staz

and the Upper

Engadine lakes;

Badrutt’s Palace

exterior; the hotel

has its own boats;

Pizzeria Heuboden

ISTOCK/PAUL THUYSBAERT