Today we thought we’d maybe have a leisurely breakfast and take the train up to the Matterhorn, even if visibility was bad. We thought we might at least see some views on the way up.

Well, I woke up and checked webcam on hotel tv and visibility was AMAZING. We got ready as fast as we could and took off for the train. We took far too many bad train photos since we were afraid the clouds would move back in.

Beth showing off her functional fitness as she squatted down to get a view of the Matterhorn. 🙂

Similar to the train up Rigi, the train makes several stops. We chose to take the train to the highest stop. When you get off the train, there is a snow field and ample spots to take photos. We took a million more photos. From there, we continued farther up to the viewing platform. At every level, we took a million more photos.

The walkways up were covered in ice and snow and had ropes for railings. Some people just went for it, others waited to hang on for dear life to the ropes. I was in the latter group.

Also as previously discussed, it seemed everyone in Switzerland was dressed for 30 degrees, when it was much warmer. I was wearing jeans, a shirt, a sweater, and my rain jacket. Since the sun was out, however, and we were walking around, I was sweating bullets. So I took off my jacket, then my sweater. And you know the saying, sun’s out, guns out.

Beth took this great panoramic shot:

It was interesting that I almost felt like I got beautiful scenery fatigue. Like it was all so beautiful that you become used to it. Hard to describe, but a weird feeling when you look at a gorgeous mountain landscape and find yourself thinking, “meh, it isn’t as pretty as that over there”.

The undercast was very cool, though sometimes hard to separate from the snow-covered mountains.

We took the train down a stop to Rotenboden, which is where we would have hiked to a glacial lake if the ground weren’t covered in snow.

You can see three hikers in the distance, who were clearly prepared with snowshoes and winter gear (unlike us). I looked at my hiking app to see where the trail would have taken us, and noticed that GLACIERS were all around us, though we couldn’t see it, and that they’re marked on the map!

The dark blue circles near Riffelhorn are lakes, while the semi-transparent light blue are glaciers! So cool.

The clouds were starting to move in, so we took the train down another couple of stops to Riffelalp, which had a restaurant. We figured we could eat there and take the train down later. There was a small building right at the train stop. We went in and saw that they had ramen, which sounded great. Except it was only for people with a special ticket. I’m guessing part of the Switzerland Grand Train Tour. So we left and walked over to the larger building, which turned out to be a restaurant. It was nice out, despite the cloud cover, so we took a seat on the edge of the outdoor patio. Our timing was perfect. We were some of the first people to sit down and the clouds cleared, giving us an amazing view of the Matterhorn. We proceeded to take a million more photos. As the clouds moved around, we just kept taking photos as it made the mountain look different.

Bottom row, second from the right: the figure walking in the bottom left corner is Beth! She walked out to the chapel.

Our spot was popular with other tourists as they all came and took photos in front of the Matterhorn. It provided great lunchtime entertainment.

It was also interesting that the Matterhorn looked better from this perspective. The higher up spot of Gornergrat was a great view, but dimished the prominance of the Matterhorn over everything around it. Riffelalp was perfect. You were close, but still had the perspective of the other mountains, so you could really appreciate how much it sticks out from the rest of the range.

The clouds began to move in, we had finished our lunch and hogged enough patio time (and I didn’t know it yet, but had the worst sunburn on my face that I’ve ever had, including my chin!), so we hopped back on the train back to Zermatt.

It was now downright hot in Zermatt. We stopped into a cafe that appeared to have indoor, air conditioned seating and had a little sweet treat. We walked around Zermatt a bit more.

Who knew you could see the Matterhorn from town? Not us yesterday, that’s for sure. After our final walk around, we went to the hotel to pick up our luggage, and it was back on the train to Basel.

More train photos, of course. The houses all had slate roofs which were very cool. The cow had a giant bell. And the bridge was somewhere in Bern, as we passed through.

Tired and needing to pack for my return the states, we got back to Beth’s and ordered delivery for dinner. We wanted the ramen we didn’t get earlier.

The next day the rain returned, but hey I was leaving. No separate blog post as it was me taking a train to Zurich airport, taking a flight to Philadelphia, waiting in the airline club for several hours, then taking a flight to Boston, and getting driven home by my daughter. Not a lot of photos were taken, but much sleeping was had.

Overall, it was an incredible trip. Switzerland wasn’t on my radar as a place I *needed* to go to, but it was amazing. I would recommend it to anyone. I would go back again in a heartbeat, especially if a friend let’s me stay with them for free.

A lot of people said Switzerland is expensive, but most of the food I bought was relatively close to what I would spend in the US. The hotel in Zermatt was along the lines of what I would spend on a hotel in a city in the northeast. Getting the Swiss pass meant I wasn’t paying for each and every train/boat/gondola, and was definitely worth it.

The scenery was breathtaking, and the transportation system means it’s incredibly easy to go see all of the scenery. If you like mountains, and lakes, and rivers (and who doesn’t?!), then Switzerland should be at the top of your list to visit.