Stoos: 5 things to know before you go

Stoos is a car-free village hung at 1,300 m above the Muotathal, reached by the Stoosbahn, the world's steepest funicular at a 110% gradient, whose barrel-shaped cabins rotate to keep passengers upright. Once you step out at the top, you trade the engineering marvel for one of central Switzerland's most generous lake-and-mountain panoramas: the twin Mythen peaks immediately above, the Vierwaldstättersee opening to the north, and the Bernese Alps as a wall in the distance. The 35 km of pistes spread across a broad sun-facing bowl, and the no-car rule keeps the village quiet enough that you hear the cowbells in summer pastures even in deep winter.