As a pop-obsessed 1980s teenager, I never fancied winter sports much: all that hairstyle-compromising exertion, ghastly knitwear and sub-zero temperatures. Then came the video for Wham!’s fondue-fragranced festive classic Last Christmas, a soft-focus saga tracing George Michael’s doomed love – his blow-dry the size of a snow-laden chalet roof – for a C&A-clad ice-maiden among the snowflakes of the Swiss ski resort Saas-Fee.
That was 30 years ago this winter. To celebrate, the scenic Valais village has gift-wrapped a range of 1980s-themed events and holiday deals to make this season special (special). From 6-19 December and 10 to 23 January, the resort is offering packages in apartments and hotels at prices they say are rewound to 1984: for example, seven nights B&B in a two-star hotel for £517 including lift-pass.
Another anniversary, marking 165 years since plucky local priest Father Johann Josef Imseng donned a pair of planks to become Switzerland’s first skier, is the pretext for similarly reduced prices between 10-23 January. Each Thursday between these [December] dates, a free guided torchlight hike will leave the tourist office at 6pm, headed for locations featured in the video – including the base station of the Felskinn cable car and Haus Schliechte, the chalet from the vid.
Truly dedicated pilgrims may wish to swing by the swishy Hotel Ferienart, which stabled the yuletide Young Guns during the shoot.
Guests taking advantage of the nostalgia packages will find the village at its winsome twinkliest, with a Christmas market on December weekends in the traditional wooden farm storehouses – look out for a George Michael lookalike there on December 12 and 13. Also, there is a plan for a Wham! tribute band to play during the “festivities”. Said to be a tiny, glitz-lite version of its near neighbour Zermatt, traditional, car-free Saas-Fee is in any case rich in reasons to visit. Although expert skiers would struggle to keep busy for more than a couple of days on its modest 100km of pistes, the runs are very beautiful. Overlooked by some 18 peaks over 4,000m and two spectacular glaciers, they are rarely crowded and exceptionally snow-sure, lying as they do between 1,800m and 3,500m, with runs on a glacier. The mileage-hungry may wish to note that the bus-linked next-door villages of Saas-Grund, Saas-Balen and Saas-Almagell can add another 45km to your ski pass, and that at one hour 45 minutes away Zermatt is just doable as a day trip.
Saas-Fee boasts a bunch of world bests, with the highest underground funicular running up to the 3,500m Mittelallalin station, the loftiest revolving restaurant in Threes!xty, which on a clear day affords views as far as Milan, and the Eispavilion – at 5,550m the largest ice grotto carved into a glacier. And it’s claiming another first this year with the new wellnessHostel4000 (youthhostel.ch, doubles from £85 B&B, dorm beds from £29), a hybrid between the youth hostel movement’s bargain-basement ethos and a wellness centre with saunas, steam rooms, therapies and an indoor pool.
Perhaps Wham!’s Saas-Fee sojourn subconciously helped to trigger my own passion for snow sports years later. Certainly since then, I’ve rarely been on a chalet holiday with friends and not found an excuse to recreate Andrew Ridgeley’s swaggering presentation of a sparkler-topped cake at the dinner table, while George steals a glance at the stone-hearted beauty who stuffed his stocking with heartache.
• Check event details at saas-fee.ch
