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| Badrutt's Palace Hotel in St Moritz is where winter tourism began in the Swiss resort. |
In September 1864 Johannes Badrutt, owner of the Faller pension in St Moritz, was bidding auf wiedersehen to his last British summer visitors, and pondering how to fill his rooms during the winter.
“Come back and spend Christmas in St Moritz. It’s sunnier and less rainy than London,” he suggested. “If you don’t like it, I’ll pay your travel costs. If you do, you can stay as long as you like.” It was an offer, so local legend goes, that the four English guests could not refuse. They returned to St Moritz in December and stayed until Easter.
And so, 150 years ago, the Swiss hotelier and the English tourists created what would become Europe’s first winter holiday resort and an Alpine playground for the international wealthy and famous.
The 2014-5 season, which opens next weekend, will be celebrated with a comprehensive programme of events marking the town’s glorious past and intended as a thank-you to those first visitors.
In 1864 local people used skis or sledge to get from A to B, but there were no established winter sports. After Badrutt’s gambit, however, going to St Moritz caught on among the British upper classes, who flocked to the village of 200 residents, attracting notables including Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (who was overthrown before he saw the magnificent palace he commissioned overlooking Lake St Moritz), Friedrich Nietzsche, conductor Herbert von Karajan and the Shah of Iran. » | Kim Willsher | Sunday, November 16, 2014
