Davos sits at about 1,560 metres in a long, high valley in eastern Graubünden, and it claims to be the highest city in Europe, which depends on how you count. It has about eleven thousand people and has been a health resort since the nineteenth century, when the dry mountain air was prescribed for tuberculosis, and a sanatorium culture grew up here. Thomas Mann, who visited his wife during her treatment in 1912, based his novel The Magic Mountain on the experience, and the expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner moved to the valley and spent his last years working in the hills.
Today the town is better known for skiing, mountain biking and the annual World Economic Forum in January, when it fills with security staff and black cars. In summer it is a lively but not very beautiful place, with long Promenade shopping streets and a mixture of hotels and apartment blocks, but it is practical: there is fuel, plenty of food, bike shops and supermarkets. Klosters, down the valley to the north-east, is smaller and prettier.
The reason riders stop is the weather check. From Davos you can go west on the Flüela pass towards the Engadin or south over the Albula and Julier routes, and conditions on the high roads can change fast, so it is worth reading the sky and looking up the road reports before you set off. Afternoon thunderstorms are common in summer, and snow can fall on the passes even in August, so it is wise to start in the morning.
For lunch, Graubünden has its own dishes: Bündnerfleisch, the air-dried beef; pizokel, small dumplings with cheese; Capuns, chard parcels; and nusstorte, the walnut cake from the Engadin. The valley is dry and sunny for much of the year, and the air has a clean, resinous smell. The town fills with traffic on summer weekends and when the Forum meets, so you can save time by avoiding the main street.