Saas Fee?
 

Has anyone spent any time in Saas Fee during the summer. It sounds beautiful and they have a music festival in the summer.Where did you stay?

Sorry, not in the Summer, but my family, i.e., my daughter, son-in-law, and their two kids stayed in Saas Fee during the winter and loved! It was a beautiful place, with a wide range of winter activities for the little ones.

They stayed at Hotel Tenne, a two stars and enjoyed it very much.

Just day tripped in - and Saas Fee rivals any Alpine resort in terms of rugged ice-bound peaks, hiking paths, cables, etc. An Alpine Wunderland!

Have spent a week in Saas Fee some years ago in summer - hiking mostly. Agree that the mountains and glaciers are amazing.

I must say, though, that I did not find it first class for hiking. The elevation difference is way too much sometimes, the glaciers are mighty and limit the access to mountains for hikers (not for mountaineers!). The cable cars were rather expensive.

The village itself is not much more than many hotels and apartment blocks (admittedly in relatively well copied local style), quite little original old houses.

I think it is great for day trippers and it might be okay for a couple hiking days - if you include the hiking paths in the entire Saas valley (from Gspon to Saas Almagell).

I stayed at the four star hotel Europa. Nice room, (rich) five course dinner with choices. Service was so-so. One evening we had the chance to join the BBQ at their sister hotel Schweizerhof. This looked (and tasted) somewhat better ... but this hotel was obviously more expensive.

ingo, Where is your favorite place for hiking? For some reason I am having difficulty narrowing down where to go...there are just too many places to choose from. I have decided on 2 nights in Lucern. I have 2 weeks. I like a mixture of small and larger places...with a preference for very cute villages.

Ingo, weren't you just in Engadin? Now there are loads of cute villages there!

My favourite places for hiking are the Engadin in canton Graubünden (especially the lower Engadin around Scuol has VERY cute villages) and the Bernese Oberland (but the most picturesque villages are to find in the western part).

Scuol is excellent for hiking. Guarda and Ardez are famous for being charming and picturesque.

I posted trip reports and links to pictures here several times. Maybe you can find some. I am just back from the Engadin (hiking again, but this time St. Moritz area) and will post trip report and pics maybe tomorrow.

Ingo, danke schön!

Schuler, aber gerne doch!

Saas Fee is a neat village that is surprisingly up-scale. I stayed near there in Saas Grund in an apartment for a week, but we were in and out of Saas Fee several times.

The Dom, nearly 15,000 feet in elevation, towers over the town almost vertically almost 10,000 feet.

I hiked several of the trails around there, but most of them were steep, very steep. The Gemsweg is so steep that descending it is actually risky. It is better to ascend, if you have the legs for it, and take the lift down.

The valley itself is quite narrow with steep walls. No trains go there; you must either have a car or take the Post Bus. The bus is efficient, and the drivers earn a tip of the cap for their skill in handling those big vehicles.

One drawback is that you do not drive in Saas Fee; you park in a garage on the edge of the village and walk or be picked up in an electric cart. Parking
is relatively expensive for a day tripper because you don't get much of a discount on the parking fee.

The valley itself is a deadend for vehicles; you go out the same way you come in.

Some adventurous souls with strong legs hike over one of the passes to Italy.
But that is a long, arduous walk.

If you are in shape, and can take the steep trails, then you will have a challenge before you.

As for a myriad of hiking paths of all degrees of difficulty and always in stupendous visual settings you just can't beat the Jungfrau area of the Berner Oberland - Grindelwald and its amphitheater of glacier-bound peaks just a few miles away - and Lauterbrunnen - hikes for all tastes. I've had lots of great hikes in Switzerland but nothing can match the sheer variety and extreme beauty of the Grindelwald-Wengen-Lauterbrunnen-Murren area. You could spend days exploring different parts of this area but in Saas Fee you'll exhaust the possibilities in your range of difficulty very quickly.

I made my 3rd visit to Saas Fee last September. Great hiking and walking paths.

One of my favorite hikes is the walk up to Britaniahutte and then down on the glacier. Casual walkers should not do this hike. Not that it is overly dangerous or difficult, but this walk will require you to walk down across the ice. After the ice, you will tackle climbing over some rocks as the hiker heads down and over to Platijen <SP?> I did not think the trail was marked that well either. I liked it because it was a hike that gave good views and allowed me to get above it all. I slipped on the snowy ice along the walk back down. I could see someone older breaking a hip if one is not careful. I guess people over 65 should think carefully about doing this hike. The hike is not that dangerous, but that walking down the ice might pose some problems for some!!!

Another more tourist freindly walk is the walk from Hannig back down by way Spielboden cable area.

I stayed at the Michebelle Hotel just in front of the post bus station!! Not overly crowded and the food was excellent.

If a person would like to hike over to the next village in the Saasantal valley, a nice walk through the forrest over to Saas Almagell is a nice walking activity.

Saas Fee is still off the beaten path in terms of Americans visiting there, even though the secret is certainly out about saas Fee now. I have always encountered many German tourists there. Some British, but few American tourists.

Part of the reasons why Americans avoid this area might be due to the fact that there is no rail stop at Saas Fee. You must connect to Saas Fee by the postal bus route.

You can drive up there through the area, but must park your car at the parking lot.

I just got back from four days and nights in Saas Fee and could easily have stayed four more. We were having to pick and choose what to do because we could not fit it all in.

We rode cable cars up many of the surrounding mountains (to Felskinn and Allalin and Spielboden and Furggstalden) and did short hikes, got our first closeup views of glaciers, and photographed marmots for hours. We also enjoyed walking through woods and along rivers to Saas Almagell and Saas Grund, and explored the church and waterfall in Saas Ballen. We visited the museum in Saas Fee and got a fascinating look at life before the roads and tourists came. We adored riding the rodelbahn (go-carts on a luge track) and trottis (big wheeled scooters) and climbing the ropes course in the Adventure Forest. In between, we strolled and shopped and ate well (I especially recommend the Hotel Restaurant Mistral on the river in Saas Fee.)

For photos of the area and a hotel recommendation, look for my recent thread called "Switzerland pictures."

It was a bigger and busier village than we usually prefer to stay in, but one could always ride up a mountain or hike to the other villages for more peace and quiet. And at the end of our trip, it was nice to spend a few days in a town full of conveniences without traffic noise or too much bustle.

Getting there was perfectly easy: we took a train to Brig and caught the post bus from the station. Buses run frequently up and down the valley, so we had no trouble relying on them when our feet got tired.

We're not skiiers, but at Allalin above Saas Fee are year-round ski runs and a halfpipe for snowboarding, so those who fancy winter sports can partake even in July.

A place with something for everyone, I think.