Saas-Fee, the Pearl of the Alps
A car-free village at 1,800 metres, ringed by thirteen four-thousand-metre peaks, beneath a glacier that skis in July as readily as in January.
The village
What a village without cars actually changes
Visitors leave their vehicles in the car parks at the entrance and continue on foot. The few vehicles inside the village are small electric ones: taxis, delivery carts, the odd works vehicle.
The effect is immediate and difficult to overstate. There is no traffic noise, no exhaust, and no kerb to keep children off. Groups spread out and reconvene without anyone counting heads at a road. Most alpine resorts stopped being like this decades ago. Saas-Fee never did.
It also changes what "central" is worth. Because everything is walked, an apartment in the middle of the village, like this one, is not a marginal convenience. It is the difference between a holiday with logistics and one without.
Winter
A glacier above the village, and a railway inside the mountain
The ski area rises from the village onto the Allalin glacier. The Metro Alpin, an underground funicular that runs up inside the mountain, carries skiers to Mittelallalin at around 3,500 metres, where the snow holds through the year.
That altitude is the reason Saas-Fee is a reliable early- and late-season resort while lower ones are watching the forecast. The terrain is broad and open at the top and narrows into the trees on the way home.
The slopes are four minutes' walk from the apartment door, through the village.
Summer
Ski before lunch. Walk after it.
Saas-Fee is one of a handful of places in the Alps where the glacier skis through the summer, which is why national teams camp here in July and August. The Metro Alpin keeps running, so you can be on snow before lunch without a single step of climbing.
Below the ice it becomes walking country: high paths through larch and rock, meadows, and the whole horseshoe of peaks in view. Long days, cool nights, and the village at its most relaxed and, for what it's worth, its cheapest.
Evenings
Dinner, either way
The restaurants sit on and around the main street, all within a walk of the apartment. Because nothing is more than a few minutes away, dinner out never needs a plan. You walk down, you eat, you walk back, and nobody has to stay sober to drive.
Eating in is the other half of the argument for an apartment. A group of eight in a hotel eats eight covers at hotel prices every night. Here, the kitchen and the table take the whole party, the supermarket is twenty metres away, and you cook when you feel like it.
Getting here
Arriving
By train
To Visp, which is on the main line through the Rhône valley, and then the postbus up the Saas valley, around an hour. The bus stops at the village entrance, a short walk from the apartment.
By car
Up the valley from Visp, then into the car parks at the village entrance. You do not drive into Saas-Fee; nobody does. Winter tyres are the sensible minimum from November.
By air
Geneva and Zurich are both realistic, at roughly three to three and a half hours by train and bus. Milan Malpensa is an option in summer over the Simplon.
Exact arrival instructions and key collection come from the local manager once your dates are confirmed. Booking details.