The Most Beautiful Mountain Hotels in Switzerland

A restored 1905 villa high on the Bürgenstock ridge above Lake Lucerne, with just 23 rooms and the most famous hotel view in Switzerland: a heated outdoor infinity pool that seems to spill straight into the lake and the Alps beyond. Intimate, discreet, and open year-round, it earns its price on the terrace at dawn. Book months ahead and ask for a lake-facing room.

The hotel built around one of modern architecture's masterpieces: Peter Zumthor's 7132 Therme, a temple of local quartzite and steaming water carved into the mountain at Vals. Rooms are styled by a roll-call of star architects (Zumthor, Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Thom Mayne), and guests get the baths after the day-trippers leave. A genuine pilgrimage for anyone who cares about design.

A few minutes up the Gornergrat cog railway above Zermatt, Riffelalp is the highest hotel in the resort and the definitive Matterhorn address: the mountain fills the windows, the spa, and the highest outdoor pool in the Alps. You trade the village restaurants for a mountain world of your own, which at this altitude is exactly the point. The best score on this list, and it earns it. It's one of the best luxury hotels in Zermatt with Matterhorn views, where we rank the village and mountain options side by side.

A restored 1870s grand hotel above turquoise Lake Brienz, set right beside the floodlit Giessbach Falls and reached by one of Europe's oldest funiculars (1879). It is pure belle-époque theatre, saved from demolition by a Swiss foundation, and one of the most romantic settings in the country, especially in summer with the lake steamers below. Gentler on the wallet than its looks suggest.

A whole resort strung along a ridge high above Lake Lucerne, with the country's most dramatic spa: an Alpine Spa infinity pool that hangs over the cliff edge with nothing but air and water below. Add the historic cliff path to the Hammetschwand lift, Europe's highest exterior elevator, and a clutch of restaurants, and it's a self-contained eyrie. Grand rather than intimate, and spectacular for it.

Jean-Michel Gathy's Asian-alpine landmark in Andermatt is the most distinctive design hotel in the Swiss Alps: dark wood and stone, fireplaces everywhere, a 35-metre atrium spa pool, and the famous glass cheese cellar. It's serene rather than showy, a modern counterpoint to the belle-époque grandes dames. We weigh whether it earns its rate in full in is The Chedi Andermatt worth it.

A former cable-car station at 2,112 m above Crans-Montana, reborn as a raw-concrete-and-stone design hotel you reach by gondola or, in winter, snowcat. The Rhône valley and the Valais Alps stretch out below the terrace, day-trippers vanish at dusk, and you have a mountain of your own. One of the highest-scoring hotels on this list, and one of the most original conversions in the Alps.

The most beautiful of the Engadine's historic grand hotels, an 1848 belle-époque grande dame in Pontresina with a frescoed hall, a superb spa, and a garden that frames the Roseg valley and its glacier. It's the classic, gilded kind of Alpine beauty, near St. Moritz but calmer and, for our money, lovelier. Grand tradition done to the highest standard.

Geodesic dome pods pitched on a hillside above Monthey in the Valais, part eco-camp, part design hotel: wood stoves, big windows framing the Dents du Midi, and in winter a small private ski lift and sledding straight from the door. It's the most fun and least conventional stay on this list, and unforgettable in fresh snow. Book a pod with the mountain-facing view.

A Jugendstil former sanatorium on a sunny terrace above Davos, reached by its own little funicular, that conjures the world of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, right down to the long south-facing balcony. Add an alpine botanical garden and one of the great valley panoramas, and you have the most atmospheric stay on this list, at a fraction of the palace rates. Character over polish, and all the better for it.