7132 in Vals: the thermal baths where you soak as the snow falls

Some Swiss hotels are destinations in their own right, and the one we dreamed about was 7132, in the village of Vals, up a side valley in Graubünden. So when family asked what we wanted for Christmas, we did not ask for a thing. We asked for a voucher for a night there. It turned out to be the start of a habit: we have been back three times, always in winter, always for the same reason.

The reason is the water. 7132 is built around the thermal baths of Vals, a low building of layered local stone by Peter Zumthor that people travel a long way just to stand inside, and the rooms in the House of Architects next door are the work of a line-up of famous names. But the moment we go for is simpler than any of that. You lower yourself into the warm thermal water, look up, and it is snowing. Flakes coming down onto a pool you are entirely warm in, steam lifting off the surface.

Then there is the thing you only learn by staying. During the day the baths and spa are open to visitors and they fill up. If you sleep at the hotel, the morning is yours: the pool close to empty, snow on the trees, nobody else in the water. That quiet early soak is our version of a perfect Sunday morning, and you do not get it on a day ticket.

The rest holds up. The lunch and dinner rooms are excellent, the pool area is as good as the architecture promises, and the village around it is small and quiet, right for a slow walk before the drive home.

If you want one indulgent winter night in Switzerland, this is the one we keep choosing. Go in winter. Stay the night. Set the alarm.