Blogs from Zermatt, South-West, Switzerland, Europe - page 3

HELLO, Helllo, helllo... from the Western Alps. More specifically, the Matterhorn peak. Today has been the highlight of this trip...so far. After traveling hours and hours my train to get here, it has been soo worth it. The town of Zermatt is absolutely beautiful and the people are all friendly. It is surrounded on all sides by mountains, clear blue skies and big fluffy clouds. We sat down a lovely hotel restaurant for lunch, and trying to stick with the local foods I ordered Pasta Apline which turned out to be mac n cheese with ham and onions... delicious. Teresa ordered barley soup which was also very good, but it came in a cream sauce which was different. I am very thankful she decided not to go with the oxtail soup, which is a delicacy but ... read more

As a young kid I remember a picture book (not a comic), where Donald Duck was travelling by train in Europe. In this particular book (not comic) the destination and the central point of the story was Matterhorn. Can’t remember the exact details, or even if it was in fact Donald Duck, but the name of the mountain stuck. Later, much later, visiting Disneyland, I got the connection. This Swiss mountain inspired someone at Disney, and they constructed a 1/100 scale model of the original and threw a roller coaster for good measure. Just to make it a bit more interesting. And commercial. Later than that, much later, after many years of unintentionally avoiding Switzerland, I finally made it to the Swiss alps. In winter, skiing would be the natural choice of activity. It’s a shame ... read more

Waking to a cloudless day could not have been better for our ascent to the perfect viewing point to see the Matterhorn. To get there we needed to travel by the cog rail Gornergrat train. What a magnificent piece of engineering to enable passengers to climb over 1400 metres in perfect comfort to view such great mountain scenery. From the top of the Gornergrat railway the Matterhorn is dominant. No one can deny its majesty and on such a perfect day the view takes your breath away. It is hard to imagine how such a mountain can be climbed. Once you get your breath back you can then take in the view of the Italian mountains that reach over 4500 metres and the dramatic glaciers down their slopes. With the 360° view you get the opportunity ... read more

Geo: 46.0193, 7.74603 So, gettin to Zermatt was tricky- we had one bus and five different trains... so five connections.... five very SHORT connections... sometimes just a few minutes from one train to the next. I don't know how we did it... but we did. We made every connection without a hitch. It was 13 hours of travel time total, so we didn't get to Zermatt until close to 10pm. I couldn't sit still on the last train, I was just so damned excited! Chris was suffering from motion sickness, tho. Poor kid. lol, when we got to our 8 bed dorm, it was totally dark! Everyone was already sleeping! So unusual. "You what that means, Chris. They're all snowboarders and they'll be up at the crack of dawn." (And they were). We weren't tired, so ... read more

How lucky I am to have been invited to share this last week of my trip with Chris and Sue's last week. Not ever having skiied, I would never have come to such a place. So different from anywhere I have ever been before. It really has to be seen to be believed. So beautiful and so amazing. It is fascinating to see so many people form different countries all enthusiastically skiing in this winter wonderland amid the Alps. Everyone is doing it...families with children and babies, older people ... Then they all seem to enjoy sitting on terraces eating and drinking in the sunshine. It has not been cold this week, although I believe it is going to get cold again tomorrow. I had a try and was quite successful, but felt that for me ... read more