Saas-Fee

Saas-Fee sits at 1,800 m at the head of the Saas valley, one valley east of Zermatt, in a bowl closed by thirteen peaks over 4,000 m — the largest concentration of them around any village in the Alps. The Fee glacier comes down almost to the houses.

It is car-free: you leave the car in a large park at the entrance and walk or take an electric cart. The village keeps its old quarter of dark timber granaries on stone stilts, and it is smaller and more intact than Zermatt.

Metro Alpin

The mountain railway is unusual. Rather than a cable car, the last stage to Mittelallalin at 3,500 m is an underground funicular bored through the rock — the highest such railway in the world.

At the top is a revolving restaurant and, cut into the glacier beneath it, the Ice Pavilion: the largest ice grotto in the world, several thousand cubic metres of chambers and sculpture at a constant few degrees below zero, 15 m down inside the ice.

Summer skiing

Saas-Fee is one of the two places in Switzerland with reliable summer skiing — the Fee glacier is high enough and flat enough that national teams train here in July and August, and it is open to the public in the mornings.

That also means the village has a long season: skiing from roughly July to May, with a short break in June.

Walking

The classic is the Höhenweg balcony paths along the valley sides, level and long, looking across at the glaciers.

The Britanniahütte and the Hohsaas routes get you up among the ice with a lift for most of the ascent, and the marmot trail above the village is aimed at families and delivers actual marmots.

Down the valley, Saas-Grund, Saas-Almagell and Saas-Balen are cheaper places to stay with the same mountains, and the last of these has a rare round church.

Getting there

• By train and bus — the railway reaches Visp (Zurich about two and a quarter hours, Geneva about two and a half), then a post bus climbs the valley in about an hour. Buses are frequent and coordinated with the trains.
• By car — as far as the car park at the village entrance, and no further.

Saas-Fee or Zermatt?

They are an hour apart and quite different.

Zermatt has the Matterhorn, more skiing, more people, more money and the Gornergrat.

Saas-Fee is smaller, quieter, cheaper, more enclosed by ice, and it has the summer skiing and the ice pavilion. There is no single famous mountain, but there are thirteen big ones in a circle.

If you want the icon, Zermatt. If you want the glacier and fewer people, here.

When to go

July to September for walking, December to April for skiing, and July and August for the summer glacier. The village works nearly all year, which is rare.