Expensive Switzerland

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Our plan for the day was to go to the Matterhorn… what we learnt is that Switzerland is the most expensive place on earth! It is really a magical mountain paradise as long as you don’t think about how much it costs for everything. Fuel is about $3 per litre, eating out is almost criminally expensive and if you get into the tourist areas, prepare for a thorough fleecing! Anyway…

To get to the Matterhorn from our campsite, we drove about an hour to Tasch. This was a pretty cool drive through the mountains in some spectacular scenery. It is a fairly steady uphill to Tasch at about 1450m high. From there you park ($17) and take the shuttle train ($20 each) to Zermatt at about 1620m which is car-free. Zermatt is a beautiful alpine resort town with its postcard Swiss buildings and spotless streets. We walked up the main street and found a great playground for Em while mum went to the shop for some snacks.

From Zermatt you have a couple of options to get to the mountain tops. We chose the cog railway which goes up to Gornergrat at 3100m. From there you get the iconic view of the Matterhorn and about 28 other summits above 4000m high. (The tickets only cost a bit over $100 each but it was cheaper than the alternative. The cable car to the ‘glacier paradise’ was $140 each!)

The ride up was great, the train rattling its way up the cog railway and the views are amazing. It takes around ½ an hour to reach the summit where the snow is still piled up higher than the train, even almost into summer. We wrapped ourselves up in scarves and beanies and every jacket we had and went for a play in the snow. When the train goes back down and everything is quiet, you can hear the glaciers cracking and popping their way down the mountains. The pathway is only partly cleared to the top of the mountain so it gets a bit slippery where the snow melts and re-freezes overnight. There were lots of people having a tough time staying on their feet – us too! We made our way back down on the train again and had a wander through the town of Zermatt.

There is a small section in the middle of town that has several buildings from the 16- and 1700’s. They are mostly old warehouses and stables, all built in the traditional Swiss style with stone foundations and timber floors above. We wandered for a while before heading back to the train station and catching our shuttle back to the car for the drive back to our campsite.

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Photos

The Matterhorn
It's out there somewhere...