Skisteder i Switzerland

Swiss skiing is high, north facing and steep more often than not, and the country's flagship resorts sit under mountains that people recognise without being told: the Matterhorn from Zermatt, the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau from Grindelwald and Wengen, the Grand Combin from Verbier. Zermatt tops out above 3,800 m at the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, which makes it the highest lift served skiing in Europe and effectively a year round area.

Terrain suits strong skiers. Verbier's Bec des Rosses hosts the Freeride World Tour final and the resort's lift accessed off piste, from the Mont Fort and the Gentianes, is as serious as anything in the Alps. Engelberg's Laub and Steinberg descents run over a thousand vertical metres of open powder, and Andermatt's Gemsstock is an off piste mountain with a few pistes on it. Against that, the Jungfrau region and the Grisons offer long, benign cruising, and the Swiss have kept small local areas alive across the Valais and Graubünden where a day pass costs a fraction of Zermatt's.

The rail network is the quiet advantage. Zermatt and Wengen are car free and reached only by train, Mürren by cable car and mountain railway, and you can travel from Zurich airport to almost any resort with one or two changes and no hire car. Away from the pistes, Switzerland is the natural home of the long sledge run: the Preda to Bergün run and the Faulhorn descent above Grindelwald, at around fifteen kilometres, are proper expeditions. Winter hiking trails are signposted and maintained to the same standard as summer paths, snowshoeing is popular in the Jura and the Engadin, and St Moritz still runs its improbable winter calendar of horse racing, polo and cricket on a frozen lake, alongside the Cresta Run.

Cheese is the foundation. Fondue moitié moitié, half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois, is the Swiss standard, eaten with bread and boiled potatoes and washed down with white wine or black tea rather than anything cold. Raclette originated in the Valais, where the cheese was melted at the fire and scraped onto potatoes with pickled onions and gherkins, and it is still served that way in the better huts rather than at a table top grill.

Beyond cheese, look for Älplermagronen, the herdsman's macaroni with potato, cream, onion and applesauce on the side, which is the single most comforting thing on any Swiss mountain menu. Rösti appears with everything. In the Grisons, Bündnerfleisch, air dried beef sliced fine, and Capuns, chard rolls with spätzle dough, are regional specialities worth seeking out. Zürcher Geschnetzeltes and Rösti is the lowland classic that migrated to the mountains.

Swiss wine is barely exported, so the mountains are where you drink it: Fendant and Petite Arvine from the Valais, Chasselas from the Vaud, and Cornalin and Humagne Rouge as reds with real character. The digestif is usually Williamine pear brandy or an Abricotine from Valais apricots. Après ski is more restrained than Austria, though Verbier's Farinet and Zermatt's Hennu Stall are notable exceptions, and there is a long tradition of an afternoon coffee with a shot of schnapps, the Kafi Luz, in the smaller valleys.

Winter tourism in the Alps essentially began in Switzerland. In 1864 the St Moritz hotelier Johannes Badrutt famously bet a group of English summer guests that they would enjoy the Engadin in winter, offering to cover their costs if they did not, and the resulting season is usually cited as the start of Alpine winter holidays. The Kulm Hotel, the Cresta Run from 1885 and the Olympia Bobrun, still the only natural ice bob track on the World Cup circuit, all descend from that period.

St Moritz hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and again in 1948, one of only a handful of places to hold the Games twice. The Lauberhorn downhill at Wengen, first run in 1930, is the longest race on the World Cup calendar at around four and a half kilometres and takes over two minutes, with the Hundschopf jump and the Canadian Corner as its signature sections. The Chuenisbärgli giant slalom at Adelboden draws crowds that behave more like a football match than a ski race.

The British connection runs deep. Arnold Lunn, based at Mürren, set the first modern slalom there in 1922 and campaigned successfully for downhill and slalom to be recognised as Olympic disciplines, which happened at Garmisch in 1936. The Kandahar Ski Club, founded at Mürren in 1924, is named after Lord Roberts of Kandahar and still lends its name to World Cup races at Mürren, St Anton, Garmisch and Chamonix. Sir Henry Lunn's package tours brought the first waves of British skiers to the Bernese Oberland.