Resorts Accommodation » Davos Ski Resort

Neon Ski gear lights up the sparkling slopes of Davos, Europe’s largest mountain resort.

Located in the canton of Grisons which rivals the Bernese Oberland as the Swiss region most familiar to winter sports lovers, Davos is a pretty little mountain resort. At 1,560 m it is reportedly the highest town in Europe. The Grisons boasts of famous resorts, apart from Davos such as Arosa and Klosters which are also highly sophisticated winter playgrounds patronized by the rich and the famous. In fact everywhere you go in Davos, there is the rattle of skis and the thunder of sweating Swiss in heavy plastic ski boots and blindingly radiant ski suits. Dusk slowly settled over the yawning town of rustic Alpine inns and cosy bars. Could anything be snugger than a Davos cafe on a late winter evening? Seen from the frosty street outside, it was bright with glowing lamps and mirrors and cluttered with coat racks and hat stands and all too inviting with cakes and cream coffees. As a pale moon rose in the sky, candles shone gustily in restaurants even as boisterous laughter emanated from the dim interiors mingling with the soft giggles of lovers entwined in dark corners. The exquisitely illumined stores and low slung modem buildings languished as though in a deep freeze as the cold fingers of winter trapped everything in their icy grip.

Before retiring for the night, we checked out the city’s sole casino but Lady Luck was apparently having a bad hair day. Not that it cost much, for in conservative Switzerland, five Swiss francs is the maximum bet allowed. In fact with only 133 slot machines and a single gaming table, the casino lacked the daredevil frenzy of its more famous counterparts in Europe and America.

For Davos, with a population of just 13,000, seems to exist in a time warp, remaining a travel poster ski town where we felt absolutely safe, even late into the night. Ethereal in the morning after a night of heavy snowfall which left the limbs of trees weighed down with their icy burden, Davos unveiled a different face at dusk. The town had a world class glitter with cafes, bars and nightclubs announcing themselves in subtle shades of neon with the occasional bright lights of a train streaming across the white landscape. For night owls there are theaters, concerts, discos and night clubs.

The next morning, the town had a muted, muffled quality especially along the high promenade (not to be confused with the main promenade that runs through the center of the town) that cuts through pine forests overlooking the town. The bleached slopes of towering mountains soared protectively around the fringes of the resort while low slung houses snoozed silently under their frowning gaze.

Davos lies at one end of the Davos Valley. On the opposite side of the valley is the Strela mountain chain, dominated by the Weissfluhjoch. The massif’s open sun Skiers gear up to tackle the slopes. bathed slopes provide the magnificent skiing that attracts devotees of the sport from all over the world. The Parsenn funicular railway takes skiers and sightseers from Davos up to Weissfluhjoch, over 2,700 m high and the upper end of the Parsenn run.(There are six other large ski areas near Davos.) From there, one can ski down the vast open snowfields to the town, a drop of around 1,000m. Or one can strike off to the north-east, and come to Davos’ neighboring resort-Klosters.

Davos—in reality Davos-Dorf with its indistinguishable Siamese twin resort of Davos-Platz— in fact owes its fame to the rise of skiing as the sport a la mode among the smart set in all western countries, said Jean-Pierre Galley, general manager of Central Sport hotel. Fanatic skiiers reportedly find in and around Davos the world’s most perfect terrain on which they carve turns endlessly, returning with chattering teeth and aching thighs. Skiing is something of a macho sport, which we did not have the nerve to risk, convinced that we would land on our derrieres. Yet there were no regrets, enveloped as we always were by such stupendous views—to the left a precipice, to the right, a snowfield. Those peaks, those glaciers, that solitude... It was something one could never tire of and at such times one began to understand the foreboding primitive man must have felt when he viewed these awesome vistas.