Adelboden: the infinity pool that hangs over the Alps

Adelboden is a ski village in the Bernese Oberland, and on the slope above it stands the hotel we go back to: The Cambrian. Its outdoor pool is heated, it is open all year, and its far edge is an infinity lip with nothing beyond it but village roofs, snow slopes and the peaks across the valley. You stand on that edge in December, in swim shorts, the surface steaming and cold on your shoulders, and the whole village is laid out under your feet.

We arrived the week before Christmas in the Covid winter of 2020, after two days of skiing in Zermatt, and drove over slowly. Checked in, went straight down, and spent the entire afternoon between the spa and that pool. Nothing else was on the plan, and nothing else was needed.

That winter the hotel ran the pool on a reservation system: a fixed number of people per session, so nobody was ever crowded. It sounded like a restriction and worked like a gift. When our session ended and the next one still had space, we simply stayed in. Then the one after that. The afternoon light faded off the peaks, the lights strung through the fir trees along the pool came on, and we were still there.

Then dinner, which was good, and which I will not describe, because the day had already made its point.

Switzerland in winter is not a cheap place to be indulgent, and I would not pretend the night is. But if there is one night of a winter trip you spend on yourselves, this is the shape I would give it: a day on snow somewhere, a slow drive over, and an afternoon in that water that ends only because the kitchen opens.