Graubünden, Switzerland

Graubunden is the largest and most sparsely populated canton in the country, the only one with three official languages including Romansh, and it holds the two most famous mountain resorts in the world — St. Moritz with the champagne, the polo on the frozen lake and a clientele that has been coming since the nineteenth century invented winter tourism there, and Davos with the skiing and the annual conference that fills the town with the world's heads of state for one week in January. Chur is the capital and the oldest city in the country, the Engadin is the valley with the Romansh language and the larch houses, and the Bernina Express runs over the Alps on a railway that is UNESCO-listed.

The canton's character is Alpine-grand and genuinely wealthy in the resorts, rural and traditional in the valleys, with a real romance-language minority that the federal government actively protects.

Expect real ski and money content, genuine Alpine glamour, and a canton that holds both the world's most exclusive ski resort and valleys where nothing has changed in a century.

Nearby: Zürich St. Gallen Uri Glarus