For several weeks, the United Kingdom has displayed a new face, that of King Charles III.
Now at the head of a supreme function, the eldest son of Elizabeth II sees his every move more scrutinized than ever.
A life in the spotlight from which the sovereign tried to escape.
If we were able to discover his property in Transylvania, Romania, another place also seems dear to him.
For nearly 45 years, the market town of Klosters in the canton of Graubünden in the Prättigau/Davos region of Switzerland has been home to one of Charles III's winter estates, as the
Telegraph recounts.
.
This ski resort, close to the Austrian border, enjoys a certain reputation in the very select world of celebrities.
Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Bono or even Julia Roberts were able to stroll through the quiet alleys of the Swiss village.
It must be said that the latter has some advantages: a vast ski area, which is mixed with a cult of discretion.
The resort of Klosters is famous for its 159 km ski area located between 1,128 m and 2,844 m above sea level and which is connected to that of Davos, with a total of 209 km, which thus constitutes the ski area largest in the canton.
Press picture
Over the decades, Klosters became an important place for Charles III.
The sovereign's skills in skiing are largely attributable to a certain Charles Palmer-Tomkinson.
With a legacy as closely tied to the royal family as it is to Olympic skiing prowess, Palmer-Tomkinson became young Charles' mentor on the slopes and friend, teaching him to ski and cementing his love for the Swiss resort.
Charles keeps some very symbolic memories there.
In 1978, during his first visit, he courted on the snowy slopes of the Lady Sarah Spencer ski area, the older sister of his future wife.
A few years later, he returns to the Swiss town to think about his future marriage proposal to Diana Spencer.
Very attached to the place, it is there that he initiates his two sons, still with Charles Palmer-Tomkinson,
Deadly avalanche in 1988
Prince Charles and Princess Diana pose for photographers with the Duke and Duchess of York, Andrew and Sarah, while on vacation in Klosters, 1987. News Licensing/ABACA
It was also in Klosters that the future British sovereign narrowly escaped a deadly avalanche.
It is March 10, 1988, a day spent leisurely hurtling down the ski slopes with friends. Before an avalanche is triggered.
His friend, Major Hugh Lindsay was killed in this avalanche.
In the columns of
Paris Match
, the photographer of the stars, Daniel Angeli, remembered this dramatic day.
“
I branched off to get ahead of them and photograph them, I was a good skier.
I realized they weren't coming.
I took the chairlift back.
The avalanche has started.
I made pictures of Charles mourning the queen's squire who had just died
”.
“As soon as the danger was over, Prince Charles, the guide and a Swiss policeman, who was skiing with the group, rushed to help the victims, digging through the snow with their bare hands to reach them
,” writes the BBC at the era.
The dramatic incident deterred Diana from returning to Klosters and is said to have contributed to the decline of the couple's marriage, but it does not appear to have dampened the king's passion for skiing or the resort.
In 2002, on vacation with his two sons, he will also learn of the death of the queen mother.
In 2005, before his marriage to Camilla
Prince Charles, with his two sons, Harry and William, during a stay in Klosters, Switzerland, in March 2005. FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP
Less than a week from putting the ring on Camilla Parker-Bowles's finger, Prince Charles is peacefully staying in the station with Harry and William in the spring of 2005. On April 8, a photo call is organized by his own services in order to satiate the pack of British journalists present in Klosters.
Alas, the microphones of several of them pick up a private conversation, during which the future monarch complains about the British journalist Nicholas Witchell: “ Damn
journalists
, he grumbles.
I can't stand this man.
He's so awful, really
.”
The latter, who spent part of his career as a royal correspondent for the BBC, which he has been working with since 1976, has been on bad terms with the future sovereign since 2000, when the reporter compared the holidays of the new Duke of Edinburgh and Camilla Parker-Bowles in Greece to those of Edward VIII and his mistress Wallis Simpson.
Words that will not have arranged his relations with the professionals concerned.
In recent decades, Charles III has taken on well-established habits in the Swiss village.
“[He] has lunch at one of the cheapest places around.
(…) he rents skis which he transports himself and always travels in second class”
, was able to reveal Ruth Guler, who ran the Wynegg hotel, one of the places of residence of the royal family in Klosters .
Proof of a certain attachment to the small town: the sovereign became a patron of certain establishments there.
In 2018, the town even named one of its cable cars after the future king to celebrate their 40 years of common history.
From now on, a question persists: will Charles III continue, with his new functions, to frequent the Swiss station?
Next winter will tell.
SEE ALSO
- The highlights of King Charles III's first speech
