There’s a myth in the Spectator office, which I’ve never discouraged, that I’m Yorkshire’s answer to Franz Klammer — a veteran ski ace who likes nothing better than to have himself helicoptered to remote peaks in search of deep, virgin powder. But myth it is, I’m afraid: your business columnist is fat, 58 and was never fast on skis or any other form of self-propulsion, even in his youth.
So you might think I’m the wrong man to be telling you about my favourite Swiss winter-sports station, which is the picture-book village of Wengen in the Bernese Oberland. This, after all, is the place where ski-racing was invented by British sportsmen in the 1920s, and is still home to the muscular Downhill Only Club. It’s a place for thrusting, not for pottering along with a hipflask and your skis not quite parallel.
But never mind; it is also a place of perfect Alpine charm, not least because it is small (pop. 1,300) and free of cars, being accessible only by railway from Lauter-brunnen in the valley far below. It has lovely hotels, of which my favourite is the old-fashioned, family-run Regina, just above the railway station. It has an Anglican church, where the Christmas Eve service is memorable. It has quaint little bars with oompah music.
And one stop higher on the little railway is the Jungfrau Wengernalp hotel, strongly recommended for lunch. The terminus is Kleine Scheidegg, on the saddle of the mountain under the Eiger. From there, if you’re up for it, attack the Lauberhorn racers’ piste back to Wengen. Or set off at a more dignified pace down the other side to Grindelwald — favoured resort for Japanese tourists, despite their trouble pronouncing it. I once took a (relatively) speedy run from the top wearing a one-piece ski-suit that makes me look like the Michelin man, missed a turn at the bottom and crashed headlong into a Japanese party waiting to board their bus.
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