Arosa

Arosa began as high summer pasture. A farm at Maran belonging to the monastery of Churwalden is recorded in 1222, and after 1300 German-speaking Walser settlers came over from Davos and replaced the Romansh-speaking inhabitants. The Bergkirchli, the small church in Innerarosa, was built in 1492. Arosa belonged to Davos politically until it became a municipality of its own in 1851; by 1850 its population had fallen to just 56.

Then came the cure. A German doctor established Arosa as a health resort in 1883, the first sanatorium opened in 1888, and after the road from Langwies was extended to Arosa in 1890 sanatoria and hotels multiplied. Arthur Conan Doyle, wintering in Davos, crossed the mountains to Arosa on skis ordered from Norway and wrote about it in The Strand in 1894, drawing British skiers to Switzerland. From 1900 winter sport grew steadily: the road served as a bobsleigh run and the first horse races were held on the frozen Obersee. The railway from Chur opened in 1914. Erwin Schrödinger was on holiday here at Christmas 1925 when he made his breakthrough on wave mechanics, and Thomas Mann spent the first week of his Swiss exile here in 1933.

The first ski lifts were built in 1938, the Hörnli lift of 1945 was then the longest in Switzerland, and the Weisshorn cable car and the Hörnli gondola followed in 1956 and 1963. In 2013 Arosa merged with neighbouring villages of the Schanfigg, and at the end of that year a cable car linked its slopes with Lenzerheide.

Arosa's culture is a resort culture, built around the seasons. Its best-known event is the Arosa Humorfestival, founded in 1992 — eleven days of mainly German-speaking comedy in December and the largest annual cultural event in Graubünden. In September the old mountain road between Langwies and the Obersee hosts the Arosa ClassicCar race, which draws thousands of spectators.

Ice hockey has deep roots. EHC Arosa, founded in 1924, won seven Swiss championships in a row from 1951 to 1957 and two more in 1980 and 1982, and plays at the Obersee stadium. Local people born here include the 1960 Olympic ski champion Roger Staub and the ice hockey players Werner and Heini Lohrer, bronze medallists in 1948.

At the 2000 census Arosa was Protestant and Catholic in almost equal numbers, and the Bergkirchli of 1492 still stands in Innerarosa. Newer traditions centre on animals: since 2018 the Arosa Bärenland has given rescued bears a home above the resort, and on the Tschuggen squirrels tamed by years of illegal feeding climb onto walkers' shoulders.

Arosa had about 3,200 year-round residents at the end of 2020, counting the villages of the Schanfigg that merged into it in 2013. The resort's population swings with the seasons, rising to its peak in January and falling to its lowest in May, and a large share of residents are foreign nationals. German is the main language, with Portuguese and Italian the next most common.

Tourism is the economy: the ski area, its lifts and mountain restaurants, the hotels, shops and holiday flats. Most of the ski area lies on land owned by the citizens' community of Chur, and Chur residents are treated as locals when buying season passes, so the town and the resort are closely bound together.

The year turns on two seasons. Winter brings skiers, ice hockey and the comedy festival; summer brings walkers on the Schanfigg high trail and the Mittelbünden panoramic trail towards Lenzerheide and Davos. Between them, in spring and late autumn, the resort becomes quiet as many businesses close.

Arosa eats the mountain food of Graubünden. Capuns are spätzle dough mixed with pieces of dried meat such as Bündnerfleisch or salsiz, rolled in a chard leaf, boiled in a broth of bouillon, milk and water and covered in grated cheese. Maluns, boiled and grated potatoes mixed with flour and fried slowly in butter into golden crumbs, come with apple compote.

Rösti, potatoes sautéed or shallow-fried in a pan, began as a farmers' breakfast in the canton of Bern but is now eaten all over Switzerland, often alongside fried eggs and spinach or a sausage such as cervelas. Bündnerfleisch, the air-dried meat of the canton, is the local cured meat.

For something sweet, the Bündner Nusstorte, a caramelised walnut-filled pastry invented in the 1920s, is the canton's speciality. Eating out is spread between the restaurants in the resort and the huts and restaurants of the ski area on the slopes above.