Trains run into the middle of Gstaad. The MOB line has its own station in the village, the promenade outside it is closed to cars, and in winter horse-drawn carriages still work the lane. For a week in the Alps that has a practical consequence: you can arrive, check in and ski without putting anything on wheels.
The holiday region is ten villages rather than one resort centre — Saanen, Schönried, Lauenen, Turbach, Feutersoey, Gsteig and the others — and any overnight stay in the region, a hotel night included, comes with the Gstaad Card, which covers trains and buses between Saanenland and Simmental. Winter 2026/27 adds one more address to the village, a few minutes from the station on Gsteigstrasse.
In this article
Nine areas, one region
Where you ski in Gstaad
Two hundred kilometres of pistes lie between 1,000 and 3,000 metres, and they do not add up to one map you cross end to end. The region counts nine winter sports areas: Rinderberg – Saanersloch – Horneggli, Eggli – La Videmanette, Wasserngrat, Glacier 3000, Wispile, Sparenmoos, Rellerli, Lauenen and Gsteig. The largest of them links Schönried, Saanenmöser, Zweisimmen and St. Stephan and holds more than 105 km on its own, which is where a group of strong skiers will spend most of the week.
Scale: 1,000 to 3,000 metres above sea level
1,050 m
1,000 to 3,000 m
1,300 to 3,000 m
The glacier starts where the other sectors end, which is why its season opens in November.
| 200 km of pistes |
9 ski areas |
31 lifts in the Gstaad sector |
71 marked runs |
Three dates are already published for the coming winter:
- Glacier 3000 — open daily from 7 November 2026 to 30 April 2027, with runs from 3,000 m down to 1,300 m. It is the only glacier skiing in the Bernese Oberland and the reason the season here starts in autumn.
- La Videmanette, in the Eggli sector — weekends only from 5 to 13 December 2026 if conditions allow, then daily from 19 December 2026 to 14 March 2027, 08:30 to 16:30.
- Snow Park Hornberg at Saanenmöser — 26 December 2026 to 4 April 2027. Three zones by difficulty, six kickers from one to six metres, boxes, rails and a quarter pipe.
The rest of the lifts publish their opening dates in a seasonal timetable and on the live info page of the lift company rather than as a single season line. Early December is the window to check, since the first sectors open by weekend and by weather.
Days that are not ski days
A week beyond the pistes
The region keeps cross-country trails, winter walking paths, snowshoe routes and toboggan runs through the whole season, and the promenade keeps its carriages. Fondue is the local evening, served in mountain restaurants as well as in the village.
What makes the difference here is that several of those evenings happen on the mountain, after the lifts have closed for the day:
- Rinderberg Snow Night — 1 January to 26 February 2027.
- Rubloz Touren Ski-Night — 6 January to 10 March 2027, an evening slot for ski touring.
- EGGLI Night Vibes — 7 January to 25 February 2027.
- Full Moon Sledding at Saanersloch — 23 January to 20 February 2027.
Two festivals in one winter
When the concerts are
Gstaad runs classical music through the slower half of the winter, and the two festival windows are worth knowing before you fix your dates.
- Gstaad New Year Music Festival, 21st edition — 26 December 2026 to 10 January 2027, across the Christmas and New Year weeks.
- Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad — 29 January to 7 February 2027, the winter classical festival, with Renaud Capuçon as its artistic director.
We do not sell concert tickets. The festivals sell their own, and the programmes and booking pages sit on the Gstaad tourism site at gstaad.ch. What we can do is hold the right week for you around the dates you want.
Pools, saunas, salt water
Where Gstaad does wellness
Wellness in Gstaad is a short list of named addresses rather than a general promise, and the resort publishes it as such:
- Six Senses Spa at The Alpina Gstaad — massages and face and body treatments.
- Wellness & Spa Hotel Ermitage in Schönried — a salt water bath, an aroma steam room and hot tubs.
- Le Grand Bellevue — a sauna and a spa area with a pool.
- Sportzentrum Gstaad — the village sports centre, with an indoor pool, a sauna and quiet rooms, open to everyone.
For the Swiss side of this, we have four articles in our wellness capsule: the clinics, the full-body MRI, the longevity circuit and a week in the Alps built around a check-up.
Enjoy Ski is a travel agency. We book hotels and chalets, not treatments or medical appointments, and nothing here is medical advice.
A new address in the village
The new hotel on Gsteigstrasse
Fouquet’s Gstaad opens on 4 December 2026 at Gsteigstrasse 70, the address where Ultima Gstaad used to receive guests. It is the newest address of the Fouquet’s collection after Paris, New York, Courchevel, Saint-Barth and Mykonos, and the first of them in Switzerland. The suites, the apartments and the private chalet are set out in our article about the hotel.
- Eleven suites and six apartments, which the hotel counts together as 33 rooms. Fireplaces, balconies, mountain views and contemporary art.
- A private chalet of nine bedrooms over four floors in the centre of the village, for up to twenty guests, with a cinema, a games room, a night club, its own spa and a private chef. The group gives its size as 1,500 sq m.
- A spa of more than 800 sq m built around a 15-metre pool, with saunas, a hammam, hot tubs and treatments by Augustinus Bader.
- A Technogym fitness room, a yoga studio, reformer pilates and a beauty salon.
- A Zuma pop-up for the season, the contemporary Japanese kitchen the group describes as bringing the energy of Tokyo to Gstaad.
The collection opens two Alpine hotels on the same day. Fouquet’s Courchevel takes its first guests on 4 December as well, and we have written about it in a separate article. One sits in the busiest resort of the French Alps, the other in a Swiss village with a station in the middle of it, which is the real choice between them.
Train, plane, Gstaad Card
How to get to Gstaad
By train
Gstaad has its own station on the MOB line, in the centre of the village, and the promenade outside it is closed to cars.
By air
Geneva and Zurich are the nearest airports. Both connect onward by rail.
Once you are there
Any overnight stay in the region comes with the Gstaad Card, which covers trains and buses between Saanenland and Simmental. That is how you move between the ski sectors.
Who Gstaad suits this winter
A village, not a purpose-built resort
The centre is a street with shops and horse-drawn carriages, and the lifts start just outside it.
Skiers who are happy to move
Nine sectors mean a different mountain most days, with a train or a bus between them.
Families
Gentle sectors for a first week on skis, and the Hornberg park for teenagers who have outgrown them.
Anyone who books around music
Late December and the turn of January into February are the two festival windows.
A group of up to twenty
The nine-bedroom chalet at the new hotel is a single booking with a cinema, a games room and a spa of its own.
We book hotels, chalets and apartments in Gstaad and across the Swiss Alps. Tell us the dates and the number of guests, and we will put together the options, confirm availability and hold the booking. Availability is confirmed at the moment of booking.
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Email: welcome@enjoy-ski.com