Gstaad

Gstaad expresses luxury through understatement. Chalet architecture, a car-free promenade, long-standing family houses and an unwritten preference for privacy have made the Bernese village the quietest of the great winter addresses.

Gstaad is a village in the Saanenland, the westernmost corner of the Bernese Oberland, close to the French-speaking Pays-d’Enhaut. Building rules have long required traditional chalet architecture, and the main Promenade is closed to traffic. Its fame came in the twentieth century through the Gstaad Palace, opened in 1913, and the international boarding schools that brought families back each winter.

The skiing is spread across several separate areas — Wispile, Eggli, Rellerli, Saanerslochgrat and Hornberg — with high-altitude snow at Glacier 3000 above Les Diablerets. Gstaad is chosen less for its pistes than for its pace: long lunches in mountain huts, cross-country trails along the valley floor, winter walking and an evening life led mostly in private chalets.

The winter season runs from mid-December to mid-March, with Glacier 3000 open longer at either end. Christmas and New Year are the high point of the social year, when the Gstaad New Year Music Festival brings concerts to the valley. Late January brings the hot-air balloon festival at nearby Château-d’Oex, and the Sommet Musical de Gstaad fills the churches with chamber music.

Summer has its own following, with green pastures, walking and golf at Saanenmöser. The Swiss Open tennis tournament takes place in July, and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, founded by Yehudi Menuhin, runs from mid-July into early September in the churches of Saanen and the surrounding villages. Many hotels close between the seasons, in spring and in autumn.

The Gstaad Palace, still in the Scherz family, overlooks the village from its hill and opens for the winter and summer seasons. The Alpina Gstaad, a contemporary chalet-style hotel, sits on its own rise above the Promenade, and Le Grand Bellevue, renovated in a softer modern style, stands in parkland at the centre of the village.

Each is independent, and LVXVRY advises on and arranges every stay directly with the hotel, including the long-stay and family arrangements typical of a Gstaad winter. The Palace and Le Grand Bellevue close between their winter and summer seasons, so the Christmas and New Year weeks, when the village is at its fullest, are best planned many months ahead.