The Matterhorn (5/13)


This morning, after a lovely breakfast at the hotel – and after I pinched myself to remind myself that I am finally seeing scenery I’ve wanted to see since I began skiing in junior high – and dreamed of the mountains of Switzerland, I started off to go up to the Matterhorn.  I had my wires crossed about how to get up there, but that meant I did a lot of walking – among chalets and mountains – and got a lot of good exercise.  Two kind women finally pointed out a bus that would take me back to the center of town, where I was to get on a special train across the street from the regular train station. It’s called the “Gornergratbahn.” So . . . I got on the train and was overwhelmed with the views! The mountains are still full of snow, and the train takes you up above the timberline to where it’s really cold and snowy, and you get up close and personal with many mountains, including the Matterhorn, which measures 4,478 m., the Small Matterhorn (3883 m.), the Gornergrat (the train’s endpoint) at 3089 m., and so on. There are 4 or 5 stops along the way up the mountain, where you can get out and hike or take pictures, and wait for the next train to go up.  I chose to just go directly to the top. Throughout the ride, people are taking pictures like crazy – and with good reason. Every direction you look is amazing! At the top, there are a small souvenir shop, a small, simple mountaineers’ chapel, and a hotel with public areas for a restaurant and some high-end gift shops. But the action is outside! There are snowy mountains in every direction, and each one is more beautiful than the next. It was pretty windy, and the temperature was just below freezing. (No, I did not have the proper clothing, but with a thick sweatshirt over a long-sleeved, warm shirt, I was OK as long as I didn’t stay outside too long.) It was hard to start down the mountain again. How to leave such beauty! But I did – and took photos the whole way.
Back in Zermatt, I wandered through the mostly open shops (on Sunday/Mother’s Day).  That’s the sign that this is a resort town! Otherwise, everything would be shut tight! The Matterhorn Museum was open, and I went through it.  The museum seemed really focused on deaths from mountain climbing, including a couple of quite famous ones. But beyond that, there were interesting exhibits of how people lived when Zermatt was a farming village in the first half of the 19th century.  The British came to mountain climb in the mid-1800s, and then Zermatt began to become a destination.  It was fashionable during the Belle Époque, and then declined during the war years.  But people swarmed to Zermatt in the 1960s for winter sports, and it has stayed that way since.  Anyway, I enjoyed the exhibits of daily life in the village, including the reproduction of the inside of a church, which was the town center. After a brief rest back at the hotel, I went out for dinner – cheese fondue!  Yum! And I just talked with both “boys” on the phone.

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