Graubünden

Chur, which calls itself the oldest town in Switzerland, is the canton's capital and its rail hub. The old town, largely closed to cars, begins a few minutes' walk south of the station: lanes, squares and fountains below the Hof, the walled cathedral precinct on its terrace. The cathedral, built in the 12th and 13th centuries, holds a carved late-Gothic high altar, and the church of St. Martin in the lower town has stained-glass windows by Augusto Giacometti. The Bündner Kunstmuseum on the Postplatz is the canton's art museum.

North of Chur, where the Rhine valley opens towards Liechtenstein, the four villages of the Bündner Herrschaft — Fläsch, Maienfeld, Jenins and Malans — grow Pinot Noir on slopes warmed by the föhn, the dry wind that blows down from the south. Paths link the villages through the vineyards, and the harvest comes in autumn. Maienfeld is the setting of Johanna Spyri's “Heidi”, and marked trails climb from the town to the meadows and the alp where the story is placed.

Between Ilanz and Reichenau the Vorderrhein has cut a gorge some 13 kilometres long, the Ruinaulta, through the debris of the Flims rockslide, the largest known landslide in the Alps; its pale cliffs rise up to about 400 metres above the river. The railway from Chur to Disentis follows the water through the gorge, with stations at Trin, Versam-Safien and Valendas-Sagogn from which paths run along the banks, and in summer rafts run the river from Ilanz. Above the northern rim, forest paths lead from Flims Waldhaus to the Caumasee, a turquoise lake for swimming, and on to Il Spir, a viewing platform above the gorge at Conn. At Reichenau, the gorge's eastern end, the Vorderrhein and the Hinterrhein meet and become the Alpine Rhine.

West of Flims, the Surselva is the valley of the Vorderrhein, and Romansh is the everyday language of most of its villages. Laax shares one ski area with Flims and Falera, known for the freestyle terrain parks and halfpipe on the Crap Sogn Gion. From Ilanz a road climbs south into the Valsertal to Vals, a village of stone roofs whose thermal baths, built by Peter Zumthor from slabs of local quartzite, draw visitors for the building as much as the water. High in the valley, Disentis is crowned by its Benedictine abbey, and from there the railway carries on over the Oberalp Pass to Andermatt.

South of Thusis, the Hinterrhein runs through the Viamala, a narrow gorge the old road to the San Bernardino and Splügen passes had to cut through; stairs lead from the road down to the river between rock walls only a few metres apart. A few kilometres further up the valley, the church of St. Martin in Zillis has a painted wooden ceiling of 153 panels from the early 12th century, scenes from the life of Christ framed by a sea of fabulous creatures. Beyond, the road continues past Andeer and Splügen to the San Bernardino Pass and down the Mesolcina, Graubünden's Italian-speaking valley, towards Bellinzona and Ticino.

The Arosa line leaves from the forecourt of Chur station, runs through the streets of the town like a tram, and climbs the Schanfigg valley over the Langwies viaduct to Arosa in about an hour. Arosa lies in a high bowl at the end of the valley, with walks to its two small lakes and a cable car up the Weisshorn, and above the village a sanctuary gives a home to rescued bears. Over the ridge, Lenzerheide spreads along its lake on the pass road between Chur and the Albula valley and is reached by PostBus from Chur. A cable car across the ridge joins the two into one ski area, Arosa Lenzerheide.

Davos, at about 1,560 metres in the Landwasser valley, grew in the late 19th century as a resort for tuberculosis patients, and Thomas Mann set “The Magic Mountain” in one of its sanatoriums after visiting his wife there. The town is strung out between Davos Dorf and Davos Platz, each with its station: the Parsenn funicular leaves from Dorf and the Jakobshorn cable car from Platz. The long runs of the Parsenn descend to Klosters and on down the Prättigau, and Klosters, a village with its own lifts to the Gotschna and the Madrisa, makes a quieter base. The Kirchner Museum shows the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who lived above Davos from 1917. The town fills for the World Economic Forum in January and for the Spengler Cup ice hockey tournament in the last days of December.

The Albula line of the Rhaetian Railway runs from Thusis to St. Moritz, and with the Bernina line it forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed in 2008. Near Filisur the train crosses the Landwasser Viaduct, 65 metres above the river, and runs from its last arch straight into a tunnel in the cliff face. Between Bergün and Preda it gains height in spiral tunnels and loops, crossing its own track; the Bahnmuseum Albula at Bergün station shows how the line was built, and a footpath beside the track between Preda and Bergün follows the climb. In winter the Albula Pass road above Bergün is closed to cars and becomes a sledge run, with trains carrying the sledgers back up to Preda. Travel the line by day for the views; the Glacier Express to Zermatt in Valais runs over it as well.

St. Moritz, where winter tourism in the Alps began in the 1860s and the Winter Olympics were held in 1928 and 1948, spreads from St. Moritz Dorf on its sunny slope down to St. Moritz Bad by the lake. A funicular climbs from Dorf to the Corviglia ski area, and a cable car continues to Piz Nair at 3,057 metres. In winter the frozen lake becomes a racecourse for the White Turf horse races on Sundays in February, and the Cresta Run, a natural-ice track ridden head first on a toboggan, and the Olympic bob run down to Celerina are built anew from ice each season. In the village, the Segantini Museum was built for Giovanni Segantini's Alpine Triptych, painted in the Engadin where he spent his last years.

South-west of St. Moritz, the valley floor of the Upper Engadin holds a chain of lakes — Champfèr, Silvaplana and Sils — between slopes of larch and stone pine, and the Maloja wind that blows up the valley on summer afternoons makes Silvaplana a lake for windsurfers and kitesurfers. Sils Maria, where Friedrich Nietzsche spent his summers in the 1880s, keeps the house he lodged in as a small museum, and the Val Fex behind the village is closed to private cars, left to walkers and horse-drawn carriages. At Maloja, the head of the valley, the road drops in hairpins into the Val Bregaglia, which is Italian-speaking and faces Italy. Soglio, on a terrace above the valley among chestnut woods, looks across to the granite peaks of the Sciora group, and Stampa, below, is the village of the Giacometti family of artists.

Pontresina, a few kilometres south-east of St. Moritz, is the base for the glaciers of the Bernina group. Horse-drawn carriages and walkers go up the Val Roseg, closed to cars, towards the Roseg and Tschierva glaciers; from Morteratsch station a path follows the Morteratsch Glacier up its valley, with posts marking where the ice ended in past years; and a cable car from the pass road rises to Diavolezza, at almost 3,000 metres, facing Piz Bernina and Piz Palü. The Bernina line climbs without a rack, on gradients of up to 70 per thousand, to Ospizio Bernina beside the Lago Bianco, at 2,253 metres the highest point of any railway crossing of the Alps. It then drops past Alp Grüm, high above the Palü glacier, to Poschiavo, an Italian-speaking town around its piazza, turns a full circle on the stone spiral viaduct at Brusio, and ends in Tirano in Italy, running through the streets of a town where the euro is the currency. Regional trains run the line year-round, and the Bernina Express runs from Chur over both the Albula and the Bernina lines.

From Zernez the Inn runs north-east through the Lower Engadin, where Romansh is the language of the villages and the thick-walled houses are decorated with sgraffito. Guarda, on a terrace above the valley, is the village of the children's book “A Bell for Ursli”, Ardez lies below a ruined castle, and Scuol, at the end of the railway, is a spa town of mineral springs facing the white castle of Tarasp on its rock across the river. Zernez is the gateway to the Swiss National Park, the country's only national park and the oldest in the Alps, where walkers keep to the marked trails and may see ibex, chamois, red deer and marmots; the park's visitor centre is in Zernez. The Ofen Pass road crosses the park into the Val Müstair, where the convent of St John at Müstair, a UNESCO World Heritage Site still home to Benedictine nuns, keeps church wall paintings from about 800.