Crans-Montana

We went to Crans-Montana between 18th - 20th May 2024 as we took advantage of the public holiday on Monday and therefore the long free weekend. Even if we have been living in Switzerland for many years, we didn't know much about Crans-Montana. Actually, we chose this destination quite randomly, simply looking on the map and trying to find an easily accessible location where we haven't been before. 

In many mountain resorts in Switzerland, the month of May is holiday, meaning that many hotels, restaurants and mainly the cable cars are closed.  We knew this, but www.crans-montana.ch made this destination very attractive even in spring, due to its many hiking paths. We knew that we won't be going high on the mountains, but we still chose to go and explore the many hiking possibilities. And it was actually better than we thought because the resort was very quite and there were very few tourists (almost none). It almost felt that all the attractions were reserved of us as a private experience. 

The first discovery was that Crans-Montana is a mountain plateau at around 1500m with amazing views to the valley and the possibility to go even higher on the mountains that edge the plateau. The station in Crans-Montana is not a train station, but a funicular one. You reach the place by train to Sierre, then the funicular. 

In this blog entry we will describe how we spent the three days in this very nice location. But a clarification is first needed. We mentioned "hiking", but we favor easy and relaxing ones with nice views instead of fainting of tiredness on dangerous or strenuous paths. 

Day 1

We walked through Crans-Montana. It is a huge resort. We walked past several small lakes, Swiss style chalets and hotels, and through vast forests. We reached the edge of the plateau where we found a golf course with awesome surroundings. We decided to also start this sport when we will be a little bit older. We found a golf ball and kept it as a souvenir and a reminder of our decision. We stayed at the Hotel La Prairie, which was old but well maintained, with beautiful view from the balcony and a very, very good restaurant, much better than we expected.

Day 2

We chose to try the "Grand Bisse de Lens" hike. To get to the starting point of this path, we would have needed the public transport, however due to the holiday, this was also very limited. Studying a bit the map, we decided to walk there, which was in itself a hike through forest paths and small, peaceful villages. We reached the Grand Bisse de Lens, which is a narrow path along a canal construction built in the 1450s and used by villages to collect water. We walked on this route around 40 minutes until we decided to diverge from the plan and visit the Lens village and also eat. The village was very nice and the restaurant l'Union deserves its 4.5 rating on Google. One of the dishes we took was made of some beef glands, not sure actually what we ate, but it was good. 

Day 3

The last day we decided to leave early, but ... walking. We planned to walk down from the plateau till Sierre, where we would take the train. We almost managed. We walked to Mollens, then to Venthone, but then we decided to take the bus down to Sierre. The bus ride was also niceas we saw other beautiful villages among grapevine plantations.

While spending the time in Crans-Montana and mentioning to family and friends where we went, we learnt several things about this resort: it was home to several ski world championships, it hosts important conferences and is also the home of numerous mountain bike and golf competitions. We learn new things with every trip we take.