The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Why you’re wrong about Davos
The Swiss town that hosts the World Economic Forum is less dull than people think. William Cook reveals its unexpected highlights
As the world’s most (self) important people gather in Davos for the World Economic Forum which starts tomorrow, the rest of the world lets out an almighty yawn. Davos always hosts this annual gettogether of politicians and business leaders – usually in January, but delayed by Covid this year – so people assume it must be a snooty place.
They couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, for the next few days its clean and tidy streets will be swarming with wellheeled entrepreneurs, politicos and (worst of all) freeloading journalists, but for the rest of the year it is actually refreshingly unpretentious. It is not remotely swanky, like Gstaad. It’s a lot more down-to-earth. I’ve been here several times and I like it more each time I come. It’s in a great location, and it’s full of things to see and do.
The highest town in Europe, at 1,560m (5,118ft), Davos is renowned for winter sports, but it’s also ideal for summer hiking, with routes for all abilities, from epic treks to easy strolls. The modern centre is bland and uninspiring, but within a few minutes you are out into open countryside. And what countryside! The valleys are lush and green and the mountains that tower above you are breathtaking. But Davos isn’t just about pretty scenery. It’s also rich with history. Here are a few of my favourite things – all far more fun than the WEF.
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
It wasn’t winter sports or finance that put Davos on the map, but tuberculosis. Until the introduction of antibiotics there was no cure for TB, but mountain air and sunlight seemed to do sufferers some good, so this high-altitude retreat filled up with people hoping for respite from the deadly disease. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island in a sanatorium in Davos; when Thomas Mann came here to visit his sickly wife, he was inspired to write his magnum opus, The Magic Mountain. Mann’s eerie novel drew on several sanatoria, including the Waldsanitorium (now the Waldhotel) where his wife was a patient, and the Berghotel Schatzalp, an imposing Jugendstil hotel perched on a steep hillside 984ft above Davos. This architectural meisterwerk may feel a little spooky, but it’s a fine starting point for some super hiking.
THE KIRCHNER MUSEUM
Due to its medicinal renown, Davos attracted all sorts of other invalids, and the one who left the biggest mark was the German expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. He came here in 1917, having suffered a nervous breakdown while serving in the German army during the First World War, and remained in Davos until his death, aged 58, in 1938. During those 21 years he painted countless pictures of the mountainous landscape around Davos, and many of these stunning paintings are on show there in the Kirchner Museum, the only gallery in the world devoted to his haunting work. Built 30 years ago, the gallery is a modernist masterpiece and the display is always changing – so even if you have been before, you are sure to see something new.
STAFFELALP AND WILDBODEN
Kirchner lived in three houses during his 21 years in Davos. A century later, they are all still here. None of them are open to the public, but that doesn’t matter – a walk between the three of them makes for a fantastic experience.
Follow the riverbank to the sleepy village of Frauenkirch, then head 1,300ft uphill to Stafelalp, an Alpine hamlet above the treeline, where Kirchner lived when he first came to Davos. On your way back down, look out for In den Lärchen, the robust farmhouse he called home for a few years in the early 1920s.
You end up at Wildboden, another farmhouse where he spent the last 15 years of his life. Hounded by the Nazis, who condemned his work as degenerate, and disturbed by the rise of the Swiss Nazi party – whose leader lived in Davos – in 1938 he shot himself in the field outside this house. His grave is in the adjacent cemetery: a wooded glade full of evergreens.
KLOSTERS
The development of Davos as a health resort had a defining effect upon its architecture: its sanitoria were built in the modernist style and the subsequent buildings followed suit. Consequently, the Davos skyline is a world away from the rustic style we usually associate with Switzerland, but if you fancy somewhere more picturesque, Klosters is only eight miles away. Smaller and quieter than Davos, and full of traditional Alpine architecture, it is best known in Britain as Prince Charles’s favourite ski resort, but there is more to it than winter sports. Despite several centuries of tourism, it still feels like a charming rural village, and this year celebrates the 800th anniversary of its foundation with a lively cultural festival.
THE RHATISCHE BAHN
Switzerland’s rail network – the Rhätische Bahn – is one of the wonders of the western world and the line in both directions from Davos is spectacular. The section between Klosters and Davos is dramatic, but the onward journey from Davos to Filisur is even more impressive, skirting the sides of steep ravines and snaking across narrow bridges – such as the vertiginous Wiesner viaduct and, just beyond Filisur, the monumental Unesco-listed Landwasser viaduct (if you don’t like heights, then don’t look down).
If you are planning on doing a lot of travelling, you may be better off buying a Swiss Travel Pass, which gets you unlimited travel on Swiss trains, boats, trams and buses, plus admission to most museums. A three-day pass will cost you £194 via myswitzerland.com; a six-day pass is £300.