For several weeks, the United Kingdom has shown a new face, the face of King Charles III. Now at the helm of the top job, Elizabeth II’s eldest son sees his every move watched more closely than ever. A life in the spotlight that the sovereign tried to escape. If we were able to identify his property in Romania’s Transylvania, another place seems dear to him as well. For nearly 45 years, the town of Klosters in the canton of Grisons in the Pratigau/Davos region of Switzerland was, as history says, one of Charles III’s winter estates. Telegram: . This ski resort near 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 walk through the quiet alleys of the Swiss village. It must be said that the latter has some advantages: a large ski area mixed with the cult of discretion.
Over the decades, Klosters became an important place for Charles III. The sovereign’s skiing skills are largely attributed to one Charles Palmer-Tomkinson. With a legacy as closely tied to the royal family as to Olympic skiing skills, Palmer-Tomkinson became young Charles’ mentor on the slopes and friend, teaching him to ski and cementing his love for the Swiss resort. Charles holds many symbolic memories there. In 1978, on his first visit, he fell in love on the snowy slopes of the ski area with Lady Sarah Spencer, 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 was there that he introduced his two sons, still with Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, William and Harry, to skiing.
Deadly avalanche in 1988
It was also in Klosters that the future British sovereign narrowly escaped a deadly avalanche. It’s March 10, 1988, a day spent skiing down the slopes with friends before an avalanche hits. His friend, Major Hugh Lindsey, was killed in this avalanche. in the columns of Paris game, star photographer 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 armchair back. The avalanche has started. I took pictures of Charles mourning the Queen who had just died“.
“Once the danger had passed, Prince Charles, a chaperone and a Swiss police officer skiing with the group rushed to help the victims, digging through the snow with their bare hands to reach them.”, the BBC wrote at the time. The dramatic incident kept Diana from returning to Cloisters and is said to have contributed to the downfall of the couple’s marriage, but it does not appear to have dampened the royal’s passion for skiing or the resort. In 2002, while on vacation with his two sons, he also learned of the Queen Mother’s death.
In 2005, before his marriage to Camilla
Less than a week after putting a ring on Camilla Parker-Bowles’ finger, Prince Charles is relaxing at the station with Harry and William in spring 2005. On April 8, a photo call is organized by his own services to get his fill. The group of British journalists present in Klosters. Alas, the microphones of some of them picked up a conversation during which the future monarch complained to the British journalist Nicholas Witchell:Damn journalists!he mumbles. I can’t stand this person. He’s so scary, really“. The latter, who spent part of his career as the BBC’s royal correspondent, with whom he has worked since 1976, has been on bad terms with the future sovereign since 2000, when the journalist compared the new Duke of Edinburgh’s holidays. and Camilla Parker-Bowles in Greece with Edward VIII and his mistress Wallis Simpson. Words that will not sort out his relations with interested professionals.
In recent decades, Charles III has developed established habits in the Swiss countryside. “[Il] lunch at one of the cheapest places around. (…) he rents skis, which he transports himself, and always travels second class.”, was able to identify Ruth Guler, who ran the Wynegg Hotel, one of the Royal Family’s residences in Cloisters. Evidence of a certain attachment to a small town. the sovereign became a patron of some institutions there. In 2018, the city even named one of its cable cars after the future king to mark the 40th anniversary of their shared history. From now on, a question arises. Will Carlos III continue to attend the Swiss station with his new functions? Next winter will tell.
Source: Le Figaro
