Crans-Montana and James Bond alias 007

26 December 2021

The French-speaking village of Crans-Montana (Canton of Valais) did not exist in the mid-nineteenth century. The Rhone valley near Sierre had been inhabited since the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the Celts and Romans also left their traces, but the mountains were not cultivated until centuries later.

Nearby Lens had about a dozen houses and farms around 1150. The location of today’s Crans-Montana on the Haut-Plateau remained uninhabited for much longer. The first buildings are only traceable from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The breakthrough came at the end of the 19th century. The (English) tourism in other areas of Switzerland always occurred in a village, St. Moritz or Davos, or villages and towns along lakes, for instance, Lake Geneva or Lake Neuchâtel.
Crans-Montana was a plain, the Haut-Plateau, but no village. Farmers grazed their cattle, and hunters regularly came for the hunt.

It changed after 1890 when more and more travellers stayed overnight in Sierre. The mountains and the Haut-Plateau attracted attention, and in 1893, entrepreneurs built the first hotel on the Haut-Plateau, Hotel du Parc, in Montana.
Montana became a health resort and a small town for winter sports.

From the 1920s on, various sports made the village a place for all seasons. The Alps and the Haut-Plateau offer golf, horses, tennis, hiking, excellent cross-country skiing possibilities, and other sports facilities.
The golf club has had the highest 18-hole course since 1908. It has been named after the legendary Spanish golfer Severiano Ballesteros (1957-2011).

The villages of Crans and Montana merged into one municipality in 1929. Life on the Haut-Plateau and its healthy air and views are appreciated by film stars, bankers, artists, top athletes and other celebrities.

For example, Crans-Montana has been the home since 1996 and the place of death in 2017 of the world’s most famous secret agent.

(Source: www.crans-montana.ch).