IN THE VILLAGE of Davos Platz, cars overrun once bus-dominated streets. The Swiss Alps may seem timeless, but times are changing. Radio Shacks tower over organic-yogurt stands.

The summer I was 14, my younger sister lost her favorite fleece jacket on a train in Switzerland. My mother and I told her to buy a new fleece because no one actually gets clothes back from a Lost and Found. To our surprise, two days later, the fleece turned up: dry-cleaned, wrapped in plastic and mailed to us in a remote mountain town. It was our introduction to the unique blend of orderliness and generosity that we would find in Davos Platz.

The ride up the mountain was memorable. The red, 1940s-era train rattled along at a stunning rate — the tracks run so close to the edge that my window looked directly out onto empty space and glacial water. We were no longer passing towns: Train stations simply appeared amidst lush green forests dotted occasionally by church steeples.

My mother, frustrated with the American medical approach to my sister’s asthma, had decided to try an alternative. At the Alpine Kinderklinik, patients exercise outdoors to absorb Davos’ uniquely clean air and follow a diet designed to wean them off allergies. This proved so effective that we returned the next two summers.

Up in the Alps, it’s easy to get away from the self. Die-hard couch potatoes become mountain bikers and hang gliders. The local lake, the Davosersee, is so big that you can take windsurfing lessons on it. On the Swiss national holiday, Aug. 1, residents of four surrounding towns gather there to picnic on Swiss cheese and chocolate, and later, to partake in a midnight torch parade.

Perhaps the best way to explore the area is by walking and running along the mountain trails. Out for one of my first mountain runs, I came upon a small chalet, now an inn. Pausing to admire the view of Davos, I climbed up on the house’s beige porch. Hidden behind a tree was a plaque, engraved in German and English:

This chalet remembers

Robert Louis Stevenson

Thomas Mann

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The house dates from the 1920s, but it replaced the chalet that actually hosted Stevenson and Doyle. The mention of Mann was purely honorary — he stayed a mile down the road.

Davos acquired recognition in the late 19th Century for its revolutionary tuberculosis clinics, where patients would lie in the sun to recover from coughing fits. The largest clinic was the German-run Valbella, the inspiration for Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Uphill from the Kinderklinik sits the hospital where Stevenson came for treatment and where Doyle brought his wife, Touie. It is an ideal spot for a picnic before the climb down.

Americans often marvel at Europe’s historical richness, at the ubiquity of famous castles. Davos is no exception, but this town’s charm lies in its understatement. Trees nonchalantly cover the names of famous guests; no neon markers proclaim, “Mann slept here.” Famous sites are nestled among the landscape, to be discovered by chance on a lazy afternoon stroll, not with a tour guide.

Davos Platz is home to the World Economic Forum and serves as a high-profile ski resort, but retains the understatement of a medical retreat. Along its cobbled main street, the Promenade, cars were rare, and hybrid public buses preserved the medically essential clean air. Schneider’s CafÉ, an old-world sweet shop, was the center of town, where families gathered to enjoy four-scoop sundaes and to marvel at marzipan and truffles.

We learned that the main Swiss supermarket was a co-op where no one spoke English, so we were left to fend for ourselves among the organic produce. We learned how to order meat, fleisch, and cheese, käse, and how to identify the warm smell of a fresh loaf of bread. Before taking the groceries home, in our own canvas bag, we picnicked on the mountain, eating berries from the roadside and pretending to be Swiss hikers. That novices could hike those trails and find our way back is a testament to Switzerland’s careful project of making the wilderness accessible for tourists. Yellow road signs direct travelers to the picnic spots atop each mountain and cable cars run halfway up many peaks to shorten the climb. The tourism aides are tasteful — the signs are small, the wooden picnic tables blend into the landscape and none of the cable-car stations have kitschy gift shops. We appreciated the unique blend of modern ease and rustic charm, and marveled at the dense forests and rugged cliffs that are the Alps.

Four years after our first trip and two years since our last clinic visit, we rented an apartment in the suburb of Davos Dorf, where I inhale exhaust from SUVs as I attempt a clean-air mountain run. After taking the bus ride to the co-op in Davos Platz, I find that the Promenade is lined with McDonald’s and Radio Shack stores. Between Schneider’s chocolate shop and the Davoser Wollmich vendor, who sells yogurts and cheeses from local cows, I see Levi’s boutiques and parked cars. In two short years, Platz has gone commercial.

The next week I wandered in the clinic. The wards were empty and quiet. Rooms needed paint and hallways needed new lights. With competition from the United States, Europe is streamlining its social programs, and public health care has come under the knife. Germany has closed Valbella.

Global warming, meanwhile, has melted mountaintop snow and a hazy industrial fog settles. Out running, I share the paths with massive off-roaders designed for the American backcountry, not the Alps. In the two years since our last visit, the signs for hikers have fallen or faded. The plaque by the old chalet is missing several letters.

I wonder if my notions of recapturing the past here are simply a tourist’s romanticism. As we stand with our cameras and marvel, “How quaint,” do we deny that times are changing, even in seemingly timeless corners of the globe?

Actively recruiting tourists, the town now hosts a summer music festival featuring classical string quartets and German folk music, a winter-sports conference and Friday-night street fairs from spring to fall. Schneider’s puts out a stand on the street, children enjoy carnival games and my family eats grilled sausages from a food cart, followed by Schneider’s ice cream. Though the ice cream is as rich as ever, the 19th Century coffeehouse has changed with the town, grown into a family-friendly bar where a man with slicked-back hair wearing tight leather pants covers Elvis and Santana hits in a German accent. In a way, modernization has its merits.

The clinics complain that the modern economy is ruining their practices; the city complains that not enough tourism is ruining their economy. Antiquarians complain about at the loss of old-world character. The oldest resident of all, the landscape, suffers silently and blames no one.

Back home, I revisit Davos through the writings of those who have been there before. They too confronted modernity in a rustic setting. For Mann, Davos was a place where “a man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.” After three summers in Davos itself, and a subsequent stay in a second-rate suburb, I wonder whether maintaining such a delicate balance between old and new was an unreachable peak all along.

Maha Atal is a senior at Brown University, majoring in history and comparative literature. This article originally appeared on Glimpse.org, an international news, travel and feature magazine.