I was one of the modern era of British baby boomer skiers who first learned to ski in the mid 1970s on the Dendix slopes of the British suburbs, before being taken to obscure little Italian ski resorts on school trips. That taught me that you can have fun at any level of skiing ability and in any ski location. British skiing has a lot to thank Dendix for, and schools for organising trips – we belittle both at our peril!
I was so hooked I’ve somehow managed to carve out a full-time, year-round career over the past 25 years, writing about ski holidays, and in that time I’ve visited more than 200 different ski resorts. I’ve found that there’s no such place as the perfect ski resort, the success of the trip depends more on random factors such as who you’re with and what the weather’s like and the travel and the accommodation.
But there are some places I would call special, and they feel special however your holiday goes – whoever you’re with, whatever the weather. Without wishing to go New Age on you, the feeling is timeless, it’s something to do with aura, or awesomeness – in the true sense of the world. For me, Meribel and Verbier don’t have it but Lake Louise and Chamonix do, it goes beyond just beautiful scenery and great facilities; it’s just jaw-droppingly spectacular. And the Big Daddy of them all is Zermatt.
It’s hardly a quaint Alpine village anymore, the architecture has been largely maintained in traditional chalet style but the village has spread for miles along the high valley floor, with hundreds of swish hotels and chalets lining the sides of the roads busy with tourists dodging buzzing electric vehicles which are actually built in Zermatt The internal combustion engine is not allowed in the resort, so there’s a quiet hum to the place rather than a constant drone.
The Zermatt difference is the Matterhorn, which towers improbably above the village and its fantastic ski area, stretching for more than 200 miles over the Italian border to Cervinia, with some of the best long runs you’ll find anywhere and terrain for all tastes and abilities, all of it overlooked by this magnificent, iconic mountain.
My family’s visit had been organised by Ski Total (01252 618 333; www.skitotal.com) who are one of the biggest tour operators in the resort, offering holidays based in 19 chalets throughout the village. We were in Chalet A La Casa in the Petit Village development at the entrance to the resort, accessed by an unusual mini underground funicular lift.
The chalet is extremely comfortable, sleeping eight and staffed by friendly and efficient hosts, the Ski Total norm, who arrive each morning to make breakfast and tidy up, returning each evening to create an excellent four course dinner – what more did we need? Well, the hot tub from which you could watch sunrise or sunset on the Matterhorn was a great feature, and the helpful resort manager who ensured all our travel and tickets were sorted, were more major asserts to take the holiday still further above the norm.
Chalet A La Casa is a few minutes pleasant walk up by the river from central Zermatt where several hundred shops battle for space along with nearly 100 bars and restaurants. Fortunately this competition does seem to drive standards up and keep prices in check as far as they can, given the strength of the Swiss Franc. Zermatt is able to offer some of the most sophisticated night life in the Alps, as well as some of the liveliest. On several occasions, walking back from the slopes, we ended up at the Brown Cow Pub and acquired large meals of good quality for a surprisingly reasonable price. The pub is within the old Hotel Post, which, with its various bars, discos and dance club, is an institution in its own right.
But sadly not everything spectacular about Zermatt is scenery. Many jaws hit the floor when they have to pay for their lift tickets as the resort boasts Europe’s most expensive. In fact, because of the strength of the Swiss franc, one version of the ticket is even more expensive that the most expensive in the US at the moment, possibly the first time that’s ever happened. At the other extreme, Zermatt’s prices for children are among the world’s most generous – those aged up to are free, under 16s are half price.
But even as you wince while your credit card melts, you do feel you are getting value for money. Kind of. The lift infrastructure required to get you up the mountains is almost as stunning as the mountains themselves – swish gondolas and cable cars climb over some of the world’s biggest lift-served verticals, entering tall precipices of rock and including Europe’s highest lift-served point at 3899m.
And you can spend a long time on the lifts too, which is value for money in a way even if you might prefer to spend a greater proportion of time skiing down. Visiting in late April only the Matterhorn sector was open, accessed at the top end of the village. So the walk to the ski bus stop, waiting for a ski bus with space to get on, walking up to the gondola then battling for a space on the final cable car to the top from the top of that took up to 90 minutes. That’s a worse case scenario, but you have been warned.
