Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Review of Davos

20th March 2007 by Bart De Bruyn, Antwerp, Belgium 

Davos is a great skiing area for good intermediates and beginners (on Madrisa, in Klosters-Dorf).
However, there is absolutely no real alpine atmosphere. It’s called an alpine city, after all, but quite an ugly one, if you ask me. So as far as resort charm goes, it’s a big no go. Shopping, as may be expected in such a large resort, is quite ordinary and certainly not as chic as one may believe. St Moritz and Gstaad (Switzerland) and Cortina (Italy) are far better when it comes to spending francs or euros on luxury items.
We always go skiing with a medium sized group, including non-skiers, beginners (kids), intermediate and very good skiers, so we’re always on the lookout for great skiing areas that also offer other activities (e.g. non skiers, inclement weather, etc…). Last 2 years (2005 and 2006) we skied in Zermatt and really found this resort one of the best ever. It may be somewhat more expensive than Davos, but it’s worth every Swiss Franc.
We would recommend Klosters for a family with (smaller) children, as the Madrisa mountain is truly a good point to start with lessons. The ski school was excellent (we had two toddlers in the group, aged 3 and 5).
As the temperatures this year were really abnormal (16¡C in the afternoon on resort level, during the first week of March), the snow was only guaranteed from 1500 m and up, although runs down to the village (Klosters) were quite difficult and not recommendable. In Davos, most runs down to the village/city were do-able, but quality would have been better in more snowrich years.
To be honest, we are not considering to go back to Davos/Klosters.

In Klosters, we stayed at the Silvretta Park Hotel (4*), which is next to (5 min walk) the Gotschna Bahn, allowing access to the large and excellent Parsenn area.
Unfortunately, this area is so busy during the weekend (Zurich weekenders), that we recommend skiing as from Monday, instead of Sunday, because queues are sometimes horrendously long and many people, Swiss, German, British or Dutch/Belgian, are quite rude when it comes to guaranteeing their space on the gondolas.

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