This time next week, policymakers and politicians from all over the planet will be making their way to Switzerland’s most easterly canton, Graubünden, to join business elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Most delegates will never hear a single word of the Romansh language while in Graubünden and very few will take the chance to explore the landscape beyond the conference precincts. In 2008, as every year, North American broadcasters will famously mispronounce Davos and the bemused citizens of Davos will watch this annual global circus take over town.

Yet there is a Graubünden beyond Davos – and it is a deliciously beautiful region of the Alps that contrives to thrive locally within a global economy. Head across the hills from Davos into the next valley, called the Engadine, for a glimpse of another world from the glitz and gloss of Davos. Twenty minutes on one of the red trains of the Rhaetian Railway brings passengers to Zernez, a homely sort of town with a Tyrolean feel.

From Zernez, it is but a short hop on to Val Müstair where Charlemagne once held court. Today the Müstair valley feels like the end of the world. Audacious mountains tower all around and the village of Santa Maria has sgraffito-embellished buildings that sit squat in the valley under the shadow of the hills. Back alleys echo to the lilt of Romansh voices.

There are many Europes – that of Brussels, London and the continent’s big business centres. And for just one week each year Davos finds itself curiously annexed to that world. Yet there is another Europe and the remoter valleys of Graubünden, especially in the thick of winter, are a world apart from the contrived sophistication that will next week engulf Davos. We know which of these Europes we prefer!

This is the fifth in a series of guest postings by Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries of hidden europe magazine (www.hiddeneurope.co.uk).