In my early years of skiing I went off to the slopes pretty well every Christmas. I enjoyed escaping the British hype and spending Christmas Day in the snow. It also seemed a great way to end the year, and of course was the much more affordable week of the Christmas/New Year fortnight in terms of ski holiday.
Flash forward 20 years and three children arriving then moving on, and Christmas on the slopes began to looking appealing and affordable again, so Christmas 2014 was booked to Switzerland. What a shame that we booked the worst Christmas for snow cover across the Alps in living memory just as the Swiss franc was reaching the zenith of its exchange-rate strength. So we paid a small fortune to battle with thousands of others to ski on what seemed to be less than 10% of the normally open terrain, with no refund or discount in sight. Happy Christmas !
Well, actually, it was, because despite the terrible ski conditions we had booked in to one of the most spectacular ski areas on the planet, a resort steeped in skiing history and home to one of the greatest world cup races on earth. Even with a snow-no-show, Wengen is simply stunning.
Credit – Rolf Wegmueller
Wengen, which is essentially a long street lined with shops, restaurants and hotels on a sunny balcony in the mountainside, has welcomed skiers since the turn of the century and is one of the handful of “original” downhill skiing destinations pioneered by British tourists (it celebrated 125 years of winter sports in the area in 2013). You arrive by rail or road to Lauterbrunnen in the valley below then take a storybook-style rack railway up to the car-free resort. The railway was built in the 1880s and continues up to the major year-round attraction of the Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest railway station, perched 3454m up and the recent beneficiary of a multi-million-pound makeover, the results of which include Europe’s highest chocolate shop, courtesy of Lindt.
The lack of motorised traffic, the small scale and the mountainside location of Wengen all make it feel very special, and the incredible views to enjoy of the mighty Eiger, Jungfrau and Mönch mountains take it to another level again.
Wengen’s British connections go back to the early years of the village, and indeed of downhill skiing in the Alps. The resort is the base of the famous Downhill Only Club (DHO), established in 1924, when the early English visitors first persuaded the locals to keep the railway running in the winter to get a lift up the mountains, then jump out and ski “downhill only”.
Credit – Rolf Wegmueller
Many members of the Club still return every year, content to go back to the same resort annually, (often the same week in the same room in the same hotel).
We almost did the same heading back to the Silberhorn, a well-located 4★ just across the road from both the railway station – one of the options for getting further up the mountain to reach the ski slopes – and the Männlichen cable car, which is the other option.
We hadn’t returned every year though; in fact again it was a couple of decades since we were last in Wengen, and the Silberhorn had had a full makeover in the meantime, even though our absence was only a small chunk of its 130-year history.
Credit – Rolf Wegmueller
The Silberhorn is a friendly place, complete with comfortable rooms (some with great views from their balconies), a cosy bar and a compact spa as well as several restaurants. But what really marked it out was the attentiveness of the reception team and indeed the waiting staff in the restaurant where high-quality seven-course Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day meals compensated somewhat for the absence of the white stuff.
As it happens, the lack of snow and the fact that battling for space on the few icy slopes open wasn’t really that much fun did make us think outside the box for our ski holiday, and we realised that we were actually in the best ski resorts to not go skiing (as well as a good one when the snow is good as ski in, ski out is noremally possible straight in to the village-centre and only 5 minutes by cable-car to the Top of Maennlichen where the ski slopes start.
First off, we took a day off to head up to that highest railway station in Europe, packed in on the train with tourists from around the world and falling into easy conversation with some American doctors about favourite resorts in Colorado. The Jungfraujoch itself is a remarkable railway station and the history of its construction fascinating.
Credit – Rolf Wegmueller
Then another day we did something very unnatural for skiers and took the train back down the valley to beautiful Interlaken, where we enjoyed superb coffee and cakes in the wonderful Schuh Café, which has been welcoming diners since 1818, as well as watching skaters enjoy a network of skating lanes created around the park and a small Christmas market.
Such is the extent of the Jungfrau ski pass (which began to feel like good value even if we couldn’t actually ski much with it) we could also have visited Mürren and its famous revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn had we had time. It is reputed to have been completed thanks to investment from the film company making the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service more than 45 years ago. But the Bond connection is still strong and a new “Walk of Fame” opened there this summer.
If we had visited a few weeks later in January we could not only have enjoyed abundant snow but also been there for the annual Lauberhorn international ski races. This annual classic is staged on the longest run in the World Cup, which, before and after race week, all resort guests can ski as well.
As it was, we decided to try to ski a little more on our final few days. The snow clouds were gathering and the lift company were prepping more terrain to open for New Year’s week, and on the day that we left the snow storms finally hit, famously causing traffic chaos for those trying to get to the French Alps, with a knock-on effect on our return flights, but in the meantime there was at least a thin dusting of fresh on the open slopes.
Credit – Rolf Wegmueller
Those who did arrive after us, and indeed those arriving in almost any normal week of any season rather than the freakishly bad one we chose, will find Wengen sitting at the heart of a huge interconnected ski area with more than 210km of runs shared with Grindelwald as well as Mürren across the valley. You’d never get bored.
wengen.ch/Jungfrau.ch/myswitzerland.com
Crystal Ski Holidays (020 8939 0726) offers a week’s half board at the 4 ★ Hotel Silberhorn in Wengen, Switzerland, from £827pp (based on two sharing) including flights from Gatwick and transfers departing on 16 January 2016. Direct flights available from all major UK airports.
An Alternative Route to Wengen
Flying to EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg from the UK is an increasingly popular way to reach Wengen. From here there is a direct train to Interlaken whereas from Geneva and Zurich you need to change trains before arriving in Interlaken. www.euroairport.com
Services operate from all five London airports as well as Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester and new this season, Bristol, provided by EasyJet, BA, Ryanair and SkyWork Airlines.
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