Andermatt

Andermatt sits at 1,440 m in the Urseren valley, at the point where four Alpine passes meet: the Gotthard south to Ticino, the Furka west to the Valais, the Oberalp east to Graubünden, and the Susten over to the Bernese Oberland.

That junction is the whole story of the place. Whoever controlled it controlled the shortest route from northern Europe to Italy, and Switzerland kept an army garrison here for most of the twentieth century, with the mountains around it hollowed out into fortifications.

The Schöllenen gorge and the Devil’s Bridge

The reason the Gotthard route exists at all.

North of Andermatt the Reuss runs through the Schöllenen, a granite gorge so sheer that for centuries it blocked the route entirely. Around 1220 someone worked out how to bridge it, and the pass opened — an event that changed the trade of Europe and, not incidentally, led to the founding of the Swiss Confederation, since the valleys controlling the new route wanted to keep the profits.

The legend attached to it is the standard one: the locals could not build the bridge, the Devil offered to, and asked for the soul of the first to cross. They sent a goat.

The present Teufelsbrücke is the third on the site, and the two earlier ones are visible below it. Beside it, cut into the rock face, is a twelve-metre cross and an inscription in Russian — the Suvorov monument, marking the battle in 1799 when Russian troops under Suvorov fought their way through the gorge against the French. The land it stands on was given to Russia in 1898 and remains Russian property.

The passes

In summer, all four are open and the post buses run over them. This is one of the great bus rides in Europe, and it costs an ordinary fare.

Furka is the one with the glacier: the road passes the Rhône glacier and its ice grotto, and the pass appeared in Goldfinger. The Furka steam railway, restored by volunteers, runs over the old line in summer.

Oberalp carries the Glacier Express over its 2,033 m summit, and the source of the Rhine — Lai da Tuma — is a two-hour walk from the top.

Susten is the best-engineered of them, and Gotthard’s old cobbled road over the Tremola, with its twenty-four hairpins, still exists beside the modern one.

Most close from about October to May, when the car-carrying rail shuttles take over — see driving in Switzerland.

The new Andermatt

The village was a garrison town in decline until the Egyptian developer Samih Sawiris began building here in 2009: a new quarter of hotels and apartments, a golf course, and a merged ski area linking Andermatt with Sedrun and Disentis over the Oberalp.

The result is a village with two distinct halves, and opinions locally are divided. The skiing, particularly the Gemsstock with its long off-piste descents, was always good and is now better served.

Getting there

• By train — Zurich about two hours via Göschenen; Lucerne about two hours. The line from Göschenen up the Schöllenen is a rack railway and takes fifteen minutes.
• The Gotthard Base Tunnel passes underneath without stopping — trains to Ticino no longer come through Andermatt at all, which is why the village is quieter than it was.
• The Glacier Express stops here, halfway between St. Moritz and Zermatt.

When to go

July to September for the passes, the walking and the steam railway — this is the only window when all four roads are open. December to April for skiing.

May, June and October are the awkward months: the passes are shut, the snow is unreliable, and much of the village closes.