Staying here is my favourite thing in the world

When, during a visit with my friend Martina in Germany, she suggests a stay in a cabin in the Bavarian Alps, I try to be casual.

“Sure, sounds like fun,” I say, not wanting to jinx it. She doesn’t know that she has just invited me to do my favourite thing in the whole world.

A few days later we are in a flowering alpine meadow. The air is soft with the smell of new grass and pine trees and cows graze in the distance. In the middle of the meadow is a traditional Alpenhutte with a painted door, two windows and a weathered timber bench for sitting in the sun.

Like Julie Andrews in the opening scenes of The Sound of Music, I slowly spin around to see the snow-capped peaks that surround us. I’m in heaven.

These traditional alpine cabins are my not-so-secret love. Beaches are beautiful but to me, they take second place to the alps. While the ocean is in constant flux, the steadfast, majestic beauty of the mountains does something to me that I can’t explain. I’m not a victim of Stendhal syndrome – the experience of heart palpitations and confusion when exposed to artistic beauty – but I understand what the 19th century French author meant when he wrote of beauty that “spoke so vividly to my soul”.

The seed of my love for mountains started with reading Heidi and later, a year spent as an exchange student in Europe confirmed it. In a stroke of luck, I was placed with a wonderful family in a village in the heart of Graubunden, the home of Switzerland’s most dramatic alpine landscapes.

On many Sundays that year, my Swiss family and I would hike. Our jaunts took us up to high summer meadows or deep into forests. In winter, we’d crunch through the snow as we made our way to a typically family-run alpine restaurant, our efforts rewarded with hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream or sugar-dusted slices of strudel.

School camps involved more hiking, lake swimming or sledding. On our hikes, we’d pass rustic mountain huts and I imagined they’d be an ideal place to stay.

There was a chance to test this idea in late autumn that year. A group of friends and I hiked up to a small hutte in the woods. We should have had views of the valley laid out before us, but we arrived in thick fog and the trees outside our cabin appeared and disappeared like ghosts in the mist.

Inside, we lit the stove and made fondue. Enveloped by the clouds, trapped until the weather passed, I felt outside of time. Far from the ease of life in modern Switzerland, I was as connected to the culture and history of my Swiss family as I would ever be.

When alpine tourism was popular in the 19th century, luxurious hotels were built, but these mountain huts weren’t for tourists or hikers. They were used to store hay or farm supplies, or for basic shelter. Some were shared by people and animals.

As new roads eventually opened access for transport, the huts were no longer needed. Many were neglected and fell into disrepair; others became simple holiday cabins. One person who recognised their architectural and cultural importance was Swiss architect Rudolf Olgiati, who reimagined the interior of a mountain hut in Flims, the ski town close to the home where I lived on my exchange year, and named it Holzerheim.

A few years after I returned to Australia, a holiday in Switzerland and a stay in a cabin was a must. As my travelling companion and I hiked towards our chosen cabin, Olgiati’s Holzerheim appeared as if from the pages of a fairytale. Inside, there was an open fireplace, a simple kitchen and two small bedrooms, and no traces of 19th century hardship.

We lit a fire and made a meal of dense Swiss bread, cheese and Bundnerfleisch, slices of paper-thin air-dried meat. Before going to bed we peeked at the canopy of stars outside. The next morning, the view unfolded: we were just a few metres from the edge of a high ridge overlooking The Rhine Gorge, one of the most spectacular sights in Graubunden. Below flowed the glacial grey-green water of the Rhine as it began its journey across Europe. On every side, the mountain peaks cut deep into the sky.

Holzerheim may have been more of a “haute” hutte than a humble cabin, one of many now available for rent, but my memories of these simple alpine cabins remain unchanged. Happiness doesn’t even begin to describe it.