Skiing in Switzerland

St. Moritz Skiwelt Engadin

In St. Moritz 322 days per year are sunny and warm, thus being a unique place in Switzerland.

The ski and snowboarding season begins at the end of November and ends in May. St. Moritz was officially opened as a ski and nowboarding resort almost 145 years ago. On St. Moritz surroundings there are many beautiful towns that worth visited: Celerina, Maloja, Pontresina, Sils/Engadin, Silvasplana, St. Moritz and Zuoz.

According to the Swiss magazine “Bilanz”, St. Moris is at the time being the most popular winter sports resort, being followed by Zermatt, Gstaad and Davos. Apart from the skiing infrastructure, entertainment options, hotels, restaurants and the quality of services were also taken to consideration.

Today, the city of St. Moritz is well known throughout the world. In 1986 the name St. Moritz become a trade mark for world’s most favourite holiday destination. This enchanting place was the craddle of winter sport of the Alps in 1864. In the same year the first travel agency from Switzerland was opened.

In  St. Moritz took place the first curling, figure skating, golf, snowboard, and bob contests durring 1880 – 1890. The first ski school was opened here in 1929. Another reason for having the name of St. Moritz well placed in mind is the opening of the first Palace Hotel in world (1896).

The regions St. Moritz and Engadin were declaired by ADAC Sky Guide the best winter resort for five types of skiing in 2003. On the second place, only a few points away, was placed the region Davos – Kloster. 
In 2003 Alpine World Ski Championship took place in St. Moritz.


Davos – Kloster

In the ski and snowboarding region Davos – Klosters can be found beautiful resorts like Jakobshorn, Rinerhorn, Parsenn, Madrisa and Pischa.
Davos – Klosters is the region with the best kept traditions. Many activities take place here durring the summer, e.g. tennis and riding contests. The city organizes also political symposiums.

The city of Davos is situated at the highest altitude from Europe. Due to the clean air a tuberculosis sanatorium was built here.

The two main cities, Davos (1560 m) and Klosters (1194 m) welcome tousands of tourists each year. The region has 250 m of slides, with 51 modern cable transport utilities, 5 slides for toboggan run, ski schools etc. The tourists come here to enjoy the biggest ski slope from Switzerland with its total length of 14 km.

Zermatt – Matterhorn
The ski and snowboarding region lays at 3900 m. The highest peak is Matterhorn (3885 m), being followed by Rothorn (3403 m), Stockhorn (3405 m) and Gornegrat (3090 m).

The winter season starts at the end of November and ends in May, buy the iceberg (wich is one of the attraction points of the region) is covered in snow the whole year. There are 195 km slopes. The region Zermatt is linked to Breuil – Cervinia (Italy) forming the extended region “Zermatt International”, with 400 km slopes overall.

Zermatt (at 1620 m) is closed for traffic, but tourists may live their cars in Tasch or in Visp and from here they can contine the journey by train. To Visp it takes only an hour by train and to Tasch only ten minutes.

The longest slope in Zermatt measures 17 km with a diffrence of altitude of 2200 m.