Under a Spell Everlasting

There is only one way to reach the Berghotel Schatzalp, in Davos-Platz in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. You must switch trains at Landquart, a small municipality in the Alps, where you stand on an open-air platform in the wind without even the consolation of a view. From there, the train follows the Landquart River, leaving behind the villages and castles nestled in the valley, before beginning to ascend 3,907 feet up into the mountains, squeezing between sheets of rock and forest. Looking out the window, all you see are trees, dense green larches, rough pines, ridges bristling with firs. And then, another 2,000 feet of elevation, as you pass through a series of covered horseshoe tunnels before breaking through the tree line and descending into the high valley of Davos-Platz. Stepping off the train onto the station platform, you must now find your way to the funicular, which ascends another 1,000 feet in four minutes, finally arriving at the summit where the Schatzalp sits. This much has not changed since Thomas Mann published The Magic Mountain 100 years ago.