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Uday K. Chakraborty

A holiday of one's dreams. Uday K. Chakraborty, on one such trip, discovers the skiing destinations of this land-locked country.

Skiing is one of the most memorable activities you can enjoy on an European vacation. In the first place, the Alps and their surrounding ranges are unlike any other in the world. America has peaks as high, but the valleys in Europe are lower, so that the ski runs in Europe are generally longer and more diverse. All of them are attractive, but Swiss ski resorts possess an atmosphere that you simply don't find elsewhere.

Switzerland's skiing ranges have attracted and inspired many a visitor — including some eminent ones. Charles Dickens, for example, was overawed by Simplon Pass. He wrote in 1844 of ``the brightest moon I ever saw, and daybreak on the summit — the glory of which exceeded all telling.''

Thirty years later, Mark Twain marvelled at Zennatt: ``Nature is built on a stupendous plain in that region. There is nothing tame, or cheap or trivial — it is all magnificent.''

The British no longer dominate the ``market", but it was they who in the last century pioneered tourism to Switzerland, discovered the Alps, and introduced the craze for climbing mountains. Even when Robert Schumann visited Valais 170 years ago, he wrote home of ``Englishmen scurrying all over the mountains like crazy ants.''

Switzerland's highest mountain — the 4,634-metre Monte Rosa, near Zennatt — was scaled in 1855, after which tourism here began to revolve around the international competition to conquer the slightly lower but more challenging Matterhorn (4,477 metres).

After defying some 30 attempts in five years and claiming many lives, it was finally conquered by the British mountaineer, Edward Whymper, who had already made six unsuccessful attempts from the Italian side. Four of his party fell to their deaths on the way down — but although triumph had turned to tragedy, newspapers throughout the world carried the name of Zennatt. The resort became the most famous in Switzerland and achieved international renown.

Swiss ski centres come in all sizes and shapes. There are giants such as St-Moritz and Murren, which offer vast assortments of runs and lifts and all the accoutrement required for the glossy good life of Europe's leisure classes. Here is a peek at some of the more interesting ski resorts of Switzerland.

Murren: Of all Switzerland's snowy Alpine retreats, Murren is blessed with the most perfect setting, on a clifftop ledge facing peaks of jaw-dropping beauty: Eiger, Manch and Jungfrou. The village is tiny, with only 300 inhabitants, and the only way to get there is by railway or cable car. Its perch seems so perilously close to the abyss that nervous visitors may prefer the higher of its two streets — snowy paths that snake through the village from railway station to cable car.

This is a 10-minute walk from end to end, via the ice rink, a handful of sedate old hotels and a small English Church; for Murren is one of the ancestral homes of British skiing and the adopted home of Amold Lunn, the father of Alpine ski racing.

Lunn invented a test for turning, designed to simulate the challenge of skiing between trees, now known as the Slalom; and he founded a British ski-racing club, Kandahar, that continues to flourish at the resort. It is more than 70 years since a group of Kandahar skiers thought it would be fun to race from the very top of the mountain to the very bottom — a 16-km marathon including two uphill sections.

Murren's Infemo race is still held every January and attracts a field of 1,500 amateur skiers. The first competitors took all day to reach the start, and the winner completed the course in an hour-and-a-quarter. The current record is a little under 15 minutes.

St-Moritz: St-Moritz has such a long-standing reputation for being elegant, expensive, and sophisticated that a number of serious skiers spend years avoiding it — and years regretting their boycott when they finally do break down and go.

The sheikhs and the furs and the Lamborghinis are all there, of course — but so are some of the finest, most exciting, best maintained ski runs in Europe. It would take several days just to ski them all once.

The resort, with a base elevation of 1,800 metres, does not just have something for everybody — instead, there's everything for everybody. The town has grown into a small ski city, and one can easily pick up a mink or a Mattisse along with ones's boot wax. Its hotels with heated pools and picture windows facing the Alps, its restaurants, boutiques and nightlife are a class apart and expensive.

And, if you do not want to spend a fortune but still enjoy being seen in a special St-Moritz institution, make sure to have coffee and a pastry at Hanselmann.

Klosters: Davos, some 20 km away by road, is one of the Alps' finest ski centres and now an important convention centre for international business. But it is big, citified and not an always attractive spot. By far the nicest place to stay in the region is the charming animated village of Klosters, which is connected to Davos by the ski lifts of the great Parsenn area. The Parsenn snowfields, at a base elevation of about 1,300 metres, are wonderfully varied, and while there are a number of areas that are rewarding for beginners, the area is also rich in challenging runs that are so long they make you feel as if you're crossing most of Switzerland.

The Klosters Valley gets early shade — but its brisk nightlife starts just after twilight and seems to keep going until the tows open in the morning. Not a village of cowbells and milkmaids, Klosters is cosmopolitan, expensive — and great fun

Wengen: Wengen, in the middle of the Bemese Oberland, is car-free. The town, which extends along a sheltered plateau at the foot of the imposing Jungfrau at about 1,350 metres, shares vast ski trails with nearby Scheidegg and Gridelwald. A choice of mountain railways (including the renowned Jungfrauhochbahn) offers newer ski trails at every stop. And, the unparalleled Jungfrau Glacier runs are open from the mid-February until the end-May. In addition to all this skiing, the town has great walking trails on well-packed, breathtakingly scenic snowy mountain paths.

Zermatt: Thanks to its altitude, Zermatt is able to offer the longest winter skiing season in the Alps, with excellent snow conditions and easy access to 160 km of ski runs. It is a dazzling fishnet of cog railways, cable cars, gondolas, T-bars, and Poma lifts that serve an enormous variety of runs across snowfields and through the trees.

And when you've done all that, there's a famous tour over the Theodule Pass to Breuil-Cervinia in Italy. In addition, there's fine springtime skiing and regular town-to-glacier helicopter service.

All things considered, Zennatt probably offers Europe's most complete skiing experience. Despite the town's popularity and heavy international traffic, it maintains a rustic village flavour. The resort is a pedestrian's paradise; any form of motor vehicle is banned from the town and horse-drawn sledges and electric vehicles provide the only means of transport. The town offers a wide range of accommodation ranging from luxury hotels to tiny taverns and self-catering apartments and chalets.

Crans-Montana: It claims to be the sunniest winter Alpine resort in Europe. In terms of capacity, this is the biggest resort in the Valais. It has fewer hotels than Zermatt but offers a wider choice of self-catering accommodation, with some 25,000 beds available in chalets and holiday apartments. As a result, it is also one of the least expensive destinations.

Saans Fee: This ``pearl of the Alps'' has retained much of its original charm and natural beauty. The resort also bars motorised transport from the village centre, and proudly boasts the world's highest underground Funicular.

The Metro Alpine is 1.6-km-long, starting at an altitude of almost 3,000 metres above sea level and rising by nearly 500 metres. The tunnel was opened in 1985, offering decisive advantages over the classical aerial cableway. It can operate under any weather condition, and ensures that the landscape remains unspoilt.

Verbier: Even in the years when less than the normal number of visitors come to Valais, there is always one exception — Verbier, where foreign guests have remained faithful to the resort and now account for 52 per cent of the total overnight bookings.

More than 1,000 guests have been visiting the resort regularly for the past 20 years — and it is easy to see why.

To cater to its winter rush, Verbier has installed new aerial cable cars. Each capable of transporting up to 150 passengers, they are the biggest in Switzerland.

The above are just a pick of the more interesting winter resorts of Switzerland. There are about 150 others (ranging from 50 beds to 30,000), and many offer all-in-one packages which are convenient and money-saving holiday arrangements.

Then there are small resorts, with only a handful of lifts — but runs that go on and on, and an atmosphere that is less hectic and more gemuetlich (comfortable and cozy), and less expensive than that of the majors.

A good many of these smaller areas (and larger as well) have teamed up with similar ones nearby and installed a couple of extra lifts that enable guests to ski from one area to the other. These multi-resort combinations often offer you ski facilities of far bigger areas, but with pleasant, intimate apres-ski life found only in small villages. It is also not unknown — as at Zennatt — literally to ski from one European country to other another, and then back again.

Picture by the author

Fact file

Getting around: It is better to buy a Swiss rail pass for a specific duration. It can be bought in India through your travel agent.

Best bargain: Write to Switzerland's Tourist Information Office, Hauptbahnhoff, Beme; for specific information on ``All-In-One Skiing Vacation'' details. Recommended for first-timers.

When to go: December to March, but definitely not four weeks following December 25.

What to take: Complete winter set, at least six pairs of woollen shocks. Ski boots and other gear can be easily rented or are usually included in the package price.

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