Switzerland

Switzerland is a small country built around a large idea — the Alps — and it has spent a century and a half turning mountain hospitality into something close to a national craft. It runs on four languages, a famously reliable railway, and an understated confidence that the scenery will do the talking.

The headline peaks need no help: the Matterhorn above car-free Zermatt, the Jungfrau wall above the Bernese Oberland. The lake cities — Geneva, Lucerne, Zürich — give the country its urban polish, and the resort towns, Gstaad and St Moritz among them, hold a hospitality tradition that predates the modern luxury industry. The scenic rail routes, the Glacier Express chief among them, are a way of seeing the country rather than merely crossing it.

Switzerland is the rare destination with two full seasons. June through August is the hiking and lake summer; December through February is the ski winter. Both are peak, both are the point — the shoulder months between are the ones to plan around.