Switzerland’s oldest city charms visitors with its fine mountain setting, twisting alleys, and historic buildings. Numerous boutiques, restaurants, bars, museums, and galleries in the largely traffic-free Old Town create a Mediterranean-style atmosphere. Celts, Romans, Ostrogoths, Franks—all ruled Chur, the gateway to important trade routes and alpine passes, at one time or another. What remains today is its 5000-year history, documented by the early Stone Age and Bronze Age finds and artifacts from the Roman period, as well as testimonies to more recent history, such as the 800-year-old Cathedral near the bishop’s residence.
During a guided city tour, history buffs can discover witnesses to the past and hear gruesome stories from civil wars or amusing anecdotes from times of peace. To this day, Chur is a commercial center and the capital of a large region, as evidenced by a variety of stores, museums, the theater, and the PostBus station, a hub of Graubünden’s mountain world. Trains of the Rhaetian Railway run hourly to world-famous resorts. A regional mountain – the ‘Brambrüesch’ – means that Chur also has its own winter and summer sports region.
In summer, Chur is the ideal spot from which to set off on walks and visits to vineyards in the “Bündner Herrschaft” winemaking region. Chur is the gateway to the Grisons mountains: 26 holiday and spa resorts can be reached in less than an hour from Chur.