The mesmerising Swiss town that ignited Britain's love affair with the Alps

Telegraph

04-03-2025

I arrived in Wengen under cover of nightfall. The cogwheel train from the Lauterbrunnen valley to the car-free village at the foot of the Eiger is rated as one of the world's most scenic, yet my night-time view from the toy-like Wengernalp train was distinctly monochrome.
Happily, I had the words of Lord Byron's Alpine Journal (September 1816) to help me visualise: 'The valley was closed up by the glaciers of the Breithorn mountain, and just here the rocks on both sides were cut down perpendicularly from an immense height, as if they had been torn asunder.' I also had floodlighting, trained onto the 974ft-high Staubbach waterfalls, to see how its 'immense height gives it a wave – a curve – a spreading here – a condensation there […] like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind.'
Lord Byron is one of many globetrotting writers, artists and musicians to have been mesmerised by the splendour of Lauterbrunnen and Wengen. The otherworldly beauty of this corner of Switzerland's Bernese Oberland bewitched Wordsworth and Mary and Percy Shelley, and inspired JRR Tolkien's elvish valley of Rivendell.
A new iconic address
The resort's mesmerising spell continues to this day. Set on the forested edge of Wengen, two neighbouring properties – Hotel Belvedere and Hotel Waldrand – proved irresistible to Beaumier, a small French hotel brand with a knack for artfully renovating properties. Work has been tireless to harness this skill and merge the two buildings under one name, Grand Hotel Belvedere – which will be Wengen's first official five-star hotel once renovations are complete.
I was staying in the completed 36-bedroom Waldrand wing, which dates to 1898 and channels a recuperative Alpine sanatorium vibe. A subtle scent of unvarnished larch pervades, with a hint of the bespoke herbal toiletries created by the organic brand Grown Alchemist. Fabrics were tactile and coloured in mossy green, russet and winter white, while large white metal windows led to balconies with uninterrupted views over Lauterbrunnen.
The five-star ambitions will be complete once the work of Hotel Belvedere's 54 bedrooms, grand restaurant, bar and winter garden rooms is finished in May 2025. The larger property sits above the Waldrand, with landscaped gardens cascading down to its smaller sibling. An indoor/outdoor spa, inspired by Japanese onsen and leading into the woods, will complete the scene.
Having arrived in Wengen with my head ringing to Byron's prose and tales of Wengen's British ski racing pedigree, the Waldrand surprised me. Met at the railway station in a tiny electric vehicle by Ronnie of Sri Lanka (beaming despite the -12C cold), I was ushered to the hotel, where a curvaceous wooden check-in desk doubles up as a bar and cosmopolitan cashmere-clad guests were playing chess by a fire.
There was more of the same over dinner in the cosy Waldrand Restaurant, where Welsh vegan head chef Will Gordon works culinary magic. Picking up the strains of Danish, Spanish, American and Swiss from my fellow diners, I enjoyed eating my way through a correspondingly multicultural feast of aubergine tempura with miso sauce and pickle, Swiss wagyu carpaccio sprinkled with local cheese and walnuts, and beer battered trout with tartare sauce and pine salt served with mini röstis.
Historic slopes
It is not possible, upon emerging at the top of the Wengernalp train, or any of Wengen's ski lifts, not to gape incredulously at the mountains encircling you, namely the soaring triptych of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger. According to folklore, the Mönch (the monk) stands between the Eiger (the ogre) and the Jungfrau (the virgin) to protect her. Legend also has it that the Eiger, the shortest of the trio at 3,967m (13,015ft), compensates for its relatively diminutive stature by claiming the lives of the climbers who attempt to conquer it (64 and counting since 1935).
To ski on the rolling 211km of pistes in Wengen, adjoining Grindelwald and Mürren, is not only to be surrounded with jaw-dropping scenery but also to relive the peculiar British history of the sport. Just a stone's throw from today's infamous Lauberhorn World Cup downhill course, Sir Arnold Lunn invented and hosted the world's first slalom ski race in January 1921, inviting 15 plucky men and women to hurtle down the 'straight down' in the inaugural British National Ski Championships. Four years later, Mürren's Kandahar Ski Club issued a ski challenge to the Wengen British, spawning the Downhill Only (DHO) ski club and a century-long rivalry.
The DHO retains a club house and active membership in Wengen today, as does the Wengen Curling Club, founded in 1911 as an affiliate of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. Many of the sun-blackened timber chalets that dot the slopes above the 13th-century hub of Wengen belong to British families, I hear English instructors on the slopes, and the owners of the Skiset rental shop are UK transplants. And yet, only 20 per cent of tourists to Wengen these days are British – much to the delight of the existing stalwarts.
My last run of the day in Wengen involved a few turns in pristine powder at the foot of the Eiger, a pause to step over the metal tracks of the Wengernalp train, a glorious swoop down the top section of the Lauberhorn and a gentle meander past the ancient chalets of Innerwengen, steam rising off the cattle basking in the winter sunshine outside them.
The words of JRR Tolkien echoed in my mind: 'I left the view of Jungfrau with deep regret: eternal snow, etched as it seemed against eternal sunshine, and the Silberhorn sharp against dark blue: the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams.'
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