The 'Grande Dame' of Swiss hotels... Badrutt's Palace

The guests dining at the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St Moritz, nestled in amongst Switzerland's Engadine Valley, aren’t the only noteworthy subjects in the room. The walls of Le Restaurant's 100-year old dining room are adorned with an historic and valuable wallpaper known as ‘Eldorado’.

Eldorado is made by world famous wallpaper factory Zuber et Cie – which rose to fame thanks to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who decorated the reception room in the White House with the scenic mural ‘Vue de l'Amérique Nord’ and has since been gracing the homes of celebrities and politicians the world over.

At Le Restaurant, Eldorado has graced the walls of the prestigious dining room since 1913 and features a world utopia with four continents: South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. These are represented by the city of Vera Cruz, a Southern Alpine lake, the Bosporus strait, and the Pyramids and Sphinx, respectively.

Highly valuable... 'Eldorado' wallpaper

But to catch a glimpse of Eldorado’s creative landscapes and floral artistry, you’ll need to suit up. Dining at Le Restaurant is a very formal affair and the dress code demands a jacket and tie.

Le Restaurant serves a daily menu of French haute cuisine in a classical, candlelit setting with a live music ensemble and is also open for breakfast, where a harpist accompanies the expansive buffet.

History buffs will be keen to know that Zuber et Cie is the last remaining international factory to print wallpaper using woodblocks. The French manufacturer has an archive of 100,000 carved woodblocks from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Zuber et Cie wallpaper is considered the most expensive in the world (a scenic mural known as 'Les guerres d’indépendence' is 15m wide and valued at USD $40,500) and the antique woodblocks used to create it are classified as French national treasures.

www.badruttspalace.com

Euro Rail is offering travellers with a four-day Swiss Pass or four-day Swiss Saver Pass in first class a bonus day to take in the stunning winter wonderland of Switzerland. 

Effective immediately, travellers to Switzerland on the four-day Pass will be granted an extra day to explore even more of the country until 20 April 2013.

Rail Europe offers travellers an expasive selection of European rail products across 22 countries and 25,000 destinations on more than 11,000 different routes. 

Swiss passes are priced from AUD377 per person and children under 16 travel free. 

www.raileurope.com.au

Nordic Wilderness in Åre

In the wild... Copperhill Mountain Lodge

After hitting the slopes, the hotel’s award winning spa is the perfect place to relax, with saunas, hot baths and lounges.  The daily tasting menu at the hotel's restaurant, Vaajese, focuses on the traditional craft of Nordic cooking and will definitely fill you up after a long day on the slopes.

COPPERHILL MOUNTAIN LODGE
Åre Björnen
83013 Åre
Sweden

Swiss Precision in Adelboden

Serene... The Cambrian

In the alpine village of Adelboden is The Cambrian, a Swiss mountain getaway with a sleek, modern design. Blazing fireplaces, cow-hide stools and walls crafted from wood chips add a nurturing touch to this luxury hotel, smack bang in the centre of one of Switzerland’s premier ski destinations.

The hotel’s spa is a must – take a dip in the outdoor hot pool for a bit of self-rejuvenation and gaze at the surrounding valleys and snow-capped mountains. Another highlight is the serene winter garden extending out from the lobby, the perfect spot for après-ski drinks and basking in the tender winter sun. 

THE CAMBRIAN
Dorfstrasse 7
3715 Adelboden
Switzerland

Après-Ski in Verbier

All about après-ski... Hotel Nevai

In Verbier, the heart of the Swiss Alps, Hotel Nevaï stands out as an icon for winter chic. Drawing its name from the ancient Patois word for “snow”, the hotel is surrounded by over 400 kilometres of ski trials as well as Verbier's notorious après-ski social scene. If you want to be seen, the hotel's Farm Club is the place to be.

From fashion shows to international DJs, this party hub has kept the music playing for over 40 years. But if a quiet night in is what you're after, the hotel's Lounge Bar has an extensive cocktail and champagne list.

HOTEL NEVAI
Route de Verbier Station 55
1936
Verbier
Switzerland

True Legends in Zermatt

Close to heaven... The Omnia

High above the snow-laden roofs of Zermatt lies The Omnia, a modern hideaway that sits serenely in the shadow of the legendary Matterhorn, arguably Switzerland’s most famous mountain.  Most of the guestrooms feature superlative views of the Matterhorn from private balconies.

Zermatt has over 320 kilometers of trails open in the winter, and is a year-round ski destination, with 365 days of snow per year. The hotel’s Cavern – a breathtaking conference center by day and lounge bar by night – sits over a sea of water in a man-made cave; the ideal retreat to let the day pass.

THE OMNIA
Auf dem Fels
3920 Zermatt
Switzerland

Contemporary Luxury in Kappl

Fashion forward... Zhero

Extravagance, fashion, and contemporary luxury combine at the new Zhero – Ischgl/Kappl, opening this December in Austria’s Tyrol. Incorporating Tyrolean tradition and innovative architecture, the hotel's 78 rooms combine contemporary design (featuring custom-made pieces from Italian designers Minotti and Bottega Veneta) with the comfort of home. 

The hotel is ideally situated between the ski destinations Kappl and Ischgl and offers guests a limousine shuttle service between locations.

ZHERO – ISCHGL/KAPPL
Wiese 687
6555
Kappl
Austria

www.designhotels.com/winter_wonderland

Classy...new Swiss casino

Housed in the Haus Ober building and under the artistic direction of Steelman Partners, a well-known architect and design firm in the casino business, the Swiss Casinos Zurich features a sleek, contemporary look with warm earthy tones running through the establishment.

Offering first class facilities, bar and dining options, entertainment as well as more than 26 gaming tables and 400 slot machines across 4000 square metres of space, the casino will largely cater to the high-end and corporate markets.

Swiss Casinos Zurich is part of the city’s ongoing urban development initiative and adds to the other 19 casinos in the country. In Zurich, it will add to the city’s existing range of attractions for the 1.5 million locals and 4.5 million yearly tourists.

For more information: www.swisscasinos.ch (please note this site is in German only) or myswitzerland.com.

Inspired by local culture... Zurich West's 25Hours Hotel

Switzerland will open its very first 25Hours Hotel in Zürich on 8 November this year. The first of its kind in the country (sixth in Europe), the hotel is located in Zürich West, a trendy hub for gastronomy, art, design, culture and architecture

The hotel features 126 rooms in four categories. Each room category is furnished differently, offering guests a variety of choices to suit their moods, needs and budgets.

Rooms in the Silver category feature a youthful vibrant and colourful scheme, while rooms in the Gold category feature a more subtle and elegant colour palate.

There are eight Platinum rooms with balconies and the exclusive Haberli Suite with two balconies, one of which faces the Alps.

The 25Hours' motto of “You know one, you know none” ensures its latest addition connects with local Zurich values and reflects the city’s sophistication in its designs and furnishings.

Targeted at a chic and urban crowd, the 25Hours Hotel Zürich West is offering introductory rates of CHF 153 per room per night on weekends and CHF 225 per room per night on weekdays. This introductory offer ends on 31 January 2013.

Regular prices start from CHF 185 per room per night on weekends and CHF 278 per room per night on weekdays. Bookings can be made from 1 November 2012.

 www.25hours-hotels.com/zurich 

www.myswitzerland.com

Now when people think of Mount Titlis they’ll also think of something else: a 100-metre-long suspension bridge which sits 3000 metres above sea level. Titlis Rotair has started building this great new addition to Central Switzerland’s largest ski and snowboard destination as a mark on Engelberg-Gerschnialp’s 100th anniversary since its first operation on the 21st of January 1913.

The project is estimated to cost CHF1.3m and is planned to be finished by the end of November 2012. However, due to snow and weather conditions it may not be opened until the end of winter.

Director of Australia & New Zealand of Switzerland Tourism, Evelyn Lafone, says the new bridge complements the existing attractions on Titlis’s glacier park and will bring visitors even closer to the Alps. This will ultimately allow them to experience the height, vastness and pure majesty of the mountains from the most impressive of platforms.
 
The route to the bridge will lead guests from the mountain station through a 140m underground tunnel and onto the viewing platform at the south wall window. The suspension bridge will connect the south wall window to the Ice Flyer glacier chair lift station. With the utmost safety, this new 100-metre long, one metre wide suspended cable construction, tourists will be able to enjoy stunning panoramic views half a kilometre down into the abyss of the Titlis south wall.
 
Existing attractions on Mount Titlis to enjoy include the glacier park, snow-tubing, a number of glacier trails, glacier caves, a variety of mountaineering activities, dining and shopping.
 
For more information on Titlis,you can visit www.titlis.ch or www.myswitzerland.com

Fantastic winter deal ... Kulm Hotel

If you’re thinking of a ski holiday this European winter, now is a pretty good time to book as many hotels offer severely reduced rates on pre-Christmas skiing packages, when the slopes are relatively quiet and – if the last few years are any indication – some of the best snow is to be enjoyed.

To be sure of finding snow early in the season, it makes sense to look for resorts at higher altitude, such as the world-renowned St. Moritz high up in the Engadine Valley at over 1800 metres. An added bonus is the great weather of the Engadine; it’s virtually guaranteed, given that the sun shines on 322 days of the year.

Two of the finest award-winning properties in the region have special ski deals that are valid for the first weeks of December and towards the end of the season.

Book a two to five-night “Ski Special” at the legendary Kulm Hotel St. Moritz (www.kulmhotel-stmoritz.ch) from November 30 to December 21 2011, or March 18 to March 31 2012, and rates start at CHF 640 (approx £500) per person for two nights, including all services, tax and VAT, a saving of up to 30 per cent on a holiday in the peak months of January through March.

The “Ski Special” includes two to five nights’ half-board accommodation, a ski pass for the entire Upper Engadine ski region for the duration of the package, transfers to and from the train station, a sea salt bath of your choice and complimentary use of the hotel’s stunning Panorama SPA & Health Club.

Just six kilometres away, sister property Grand Hotel Kronenhof (www.kronenhof.com) in nearby Pontresina, also has a great package.

This peaceful mountain resort provides easy access to the more famous St. Moritz but a refreshing tranquillity at the end of a hard day’s skiing; relax with a walk through the charming streets lined with old Engadine houses dating to the 17th and 18th centuries or retreat to the hotel’s modern spa with its indoor pools, steam rooms, saunas and treatment rooms.

The Grand Hotel Kronenhof’s “Winter Special” Package includes half-board accommodation and complimentary use of the hotel’s 2000 square metre Spa. Prices start from CHF 395 (approx £310) per person, per night; this package is valid from December 2 to December 18 2011, as well as from January 9 to January 19 2012.

To book either of these great packages you can call the Kulm Hotel St Moritz on +41 81 836 8000 or email reservations@kulmhotel-stmoritz.ch

Alternatively, call the Grand Hotel Kronenhof on +41 81 830 3030 or email reservations@kronenhof.com

And I love these names – they fall trippingly off the tongue: Come stand with me on the Kleine Scheidegg and gaze across the blinding snow at the Eigergletscher up towards the Jungfraujoch.

The Jungfraujoch, named by a less enlightened age, the young bride’s yoke – (not that some brides don’t need them – yokes I mean) is the dip between the Mönch and the Jungfrau.

The Swiss could teach me a lot about skiing, but then, my less kind friends would point out, so could the Tahitians, Papua New Guineans, Sudanese and other peoples not generally known for their skiing prowess.

Right now I’m skiing behind a fellow who is a Swiss native on a difficult run called the Schlit (worth skiing for the name alone, really), watching his turns and trying to keep up, you realise these people ski like they were born wearing a pair of 176cm Rossignol powder skis (ouch! Pity their moms).

We get to the bottom of the Schlit and begin to head back to the Kleine Scheidegg, an easy powder run in front of the mighty Eiger, said by some to be the highest mountain in Europe (those who don’t have a clue what the highest mountain in Europe is).

The Eiger is such a treacherous mountain that in the 1920 it killed pretty well anyone who came near it, particularly its north face. Now, thanks to improved climbing techniques people run from the Kleine Schidegg to the summit in a few minutes.

And if you absolutely have to come to the Jungfrau, then you may as well stay in the intimate and cool Hotel Caprice, which also happens to be one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World brand’s finest.

Wengen is a tiny car-free village in the Bernese Oberland and the 18-room Caprice could have been tailor-made to enable people like me to swan around the world in complete ease.

After a dinner of autour du homar (lobster the chef’s way prepared as a bouillabaisse), gigot d’agneau (leg of lamb cooked for seven hours to eat with a spoon, forgotten vegetables and a garlic jus).

The bouillabaise is a song, the lamb hearty enough for a girl who has just spent the day skiing with only a short break for beer, swine and cold potato salad.

I settle in front of the roaring open fire and take in the Jungfrau, so close you could almost reach out and touch it.

The Caprice is one of the few places that look out into the valley – “traditionally hotels were closed off because the cold was something you had to fight and after a renovation it has been opened up, while still blending in with the natural environment.”

A word of advice. If you do go to Wengen, allow more than the paltry two days that I did.

To explore the whole region: the Keline Scheidegg-Mannlicehn, First-Grunewald and Murren-Schilthorn, allow seven or so days to work out your faves and ski them a few times.

The runs are so long you basically have time to get where you are going, have a few tries, grab lunch, consisting of swine in various forms, drink a couple of absurdly large, icy cold beers, and then start back to the Caprice. Then it’s back to the hotel balcony to see the last rays of sun caressing the peaks of the Jungfrau across the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Time for a quick beer before dinner, you can head out to the Tanne Bar and mix with the locals and pop into a local restaurant for supper, which I did one night with a few drinks on board. Order a fondue and in the clean mountain air you will soon be gorging yourself on cheese like a crazed Welshwoman who has just won the rarebit lottery.

The Caprice is an easy train ride up the mountain from Interlaken. Etihad airways flies to Geneva from Abu Dhabi every day. Don’t leave your run too late, the last train up the mountain from Interlaken is before midnight.
The hotel is a one minute 30-second walk from the station.

Iris Potter

The Caprice
Wengen 3823. Switzerland
www.slh.com/caprice/
1 800 251 958 (toll free)

www.slh.com

http://www.caprice-wengen.ch/

High calorie kiss ... a fondue at altitude

OK I’m not going to lie to you. I drink a fair bit. Which is how I got into a spot of bother in St Moritz.

Nothing to do with the hotel I’m reviewing mind, which is fantastic by the way and I spent many, many happy hours ensconced in the Piano Bar telling yarns about my skiing prowess, each tale taller than the last. Wait a minute: you two swap places.

No how it happened was this.

I like to ski in places below the tree line. Australia is especially great for that.

To duck behind a gum tree at an opportune time and ski away, leaving nothing but a hole in the snow is one of the supreme pleasures of being in God’s chintzy outdoors in the first place.

Sadly on this particular hungover morn I was miles up, having caught a vernicular up to the tippy tippy top on the Swiss Alps.

After a while hydraulic pressure caught up with me, and, there being no trees in the vicinity I decided to ski under the rope and over a small ridge, off-piste as it were.

As I was minding my own business doing what men have been doing for thousands of years, there was an ominous crack. The snow beneath me gave way and I fell about 2m into a creek bed.

There I was, in an ice cave, up to my waist in frozen running water my 176cm Rossignol carvers crunching on jagged subterranean rocks.

Needless to say, when I finally dug myself out I needed a beer like no tongue can tell.

A sauna at the Crystal after a day’s skiing in soaked gear is the best cure for incipient frostbite that I know.

The Crystal is part of the Small Luxury Hotel’s of the World brand, is in the heart of town and a very short walk to all the best hangouts.

Or you can do as I did, and after drying off, giving my hair a going over with a bug rake and some minor detailing, head to the piano bar.

I go to the Crystal for its five-star service at a four star-price, and I keep coming back for the food, friendly staff and authentic ski-lodge feel.

My first day on the slopes and two cable car rides gets me to over 3000m to the top of Piz Corvatsch. From there, there are plenty of choices on a mountain that frankly flatters my skiing abilities. I ski down a red run on the mighty Corvatsch glacier.
The first thing I notice is how much easier the turns are in my light powder  Rossignols (this is before the rock crunching incident).

Either all the work I did in the sweating place (gymnasium ) paid off, or there have been some changes to skiing technology.

Maybe it’s the altitude, but all too soon it’s time to find a bar, a beer and a bowl of steaming fondue. I ski to a restaurant near Corvatsch Mittelstation and order an icy cold litre of Swiss Calanda beer to take the edge off my thirst. And a bottle of Primitivo Italian red to go with the fondue. I insist on some cured meats and a hot dog or two to dip into the fondue – like I’m going to sit there and eat bread and cheese without meat.

At the next table, a happy loving couple is sharing a high calorie kiss with their fondue. I take a photo of them without them noticing.

Some more skiing on some of the finest runs in Europe (always strangely drawn back to the restaurant at Corvatsch for more refreshments) and it’s time to make my tired but sated way back to the Crystal for a shower, sauna, spa, rubdown and a lie down, and another shower and dinner in Crystal’s own restaurant.

Herr Marc Kilchenmann, Crystal’s general manager, urges me to order the line-caught sea bass. The restaurant has a different theme every night, and tonight it’s Italian. Executive chef Paolo Platin personally rubs the sea bass with lemon thyme. It’s baked, and so am I by this time, and served with asparagus and potatoes (the fish I mean, not me).

Italy is just to the south, and the hotel buys all its Mediterranean foods there.
I wash the sea bass down with a 2005 Venica sauvignon blanc, which is dry but fruity enough to take on the sea bass. Then it’s off to the hotel’s bar, where an Italian singer on the piano is happy to take my requests.

I share stories of my exploits on the slopes with my fellow guests, each tale more hair-raising than the last.

The Crystal has the friendliest staff you can find in St Moritz and the best location. They are also happy to organise transfers from the station if you choose to come on the train up from Chur.
My room has plenty of exposed timber, again for that ski lodge feel, a monster timber bed, heated towel rails and a huge balcony, with a view over the village, the slopes above, and it’s where I rest my beer (the forecast is for -5C tonight). There is also a dressing room in my room and a huge bath you could do laps in.

Barry Walker

Crystal St Moritz

Switzerland

Via Traunter Plazzas 1

7500 St. Moritz – SwitzerlandPhone : +41 – 81 836 26 26

Email: stay@crystalhotel.ch

www.crystalhotel.ch