Best ski resorts for a honeymoon (chalets, spas, Matterhorn views)

How we picked

St. Moritz invented winter tourism in 1864 and still sets the standard. The Engadin sunshine, Badrutt's Palace afternoon tea, and the White Turf horse racing on the frozen lake make February a postcard, while the skiing on Corviglia and Corvatsch is more serious than people expect. Gstaad in the Bernese Oberland sells understatement: chalet hotels, Alpine farmhouse cuisine, no nightclubs, no neon. Megève does the French version of the same, the village that Noemie de Rothschild built in the 1920s as an answer to St. Moritz, ideal for couples who want walkable cobblestones and Flocons de Sel at dinner. Courchevel 1850 is for the cleaner luxury crowd: more Michelin stars per square kilometre than anywhere in the Alps, helicopter transfers from Geneva, and ski-in ski-out palaces like the Cheval Blanc. Aspen Snowmass on the American side blends four mountains with the Little Nell concierge culture, while Zermatt simply puts the Matterhorn outside the bedroom window, which no other resort can match. Niseko on Hokkaido offers an entirely different romance: powder mornings followed by private onsen baths and kaiseki dinners in a ryokan. Cortina d'Ampezzo brings the Dolomites pink-glow sunset and the Faloria spa hotels into a UNESCO setting, and Lech-Zürs in the Arlberg ties together skiing of the highest order with intimate gasthof villages. Pick by view, food, or quiet, and the right resort writes the rest of the trip.