The Matterhorn.
Invented by Walt Disney to excite kids on a roller coaster? Or a real mountain in the Alps?
We have been to Europe for nine years now, hiking in the French Alps, Switzerland, the Italian Dolomites, the South Tirol of Austria, and the high peaks of Germany.
Yet we have never laid eyes on the Matterhorn.
Oh, we have been "in sight" of it, they say. "But it is clouded in."
They say. Whomever "they" are.
Perhaps it is a mythical creature.
That is why we came to Zermatt.
We hated to leave Sion, the lovely guesthouse and the wonderful hiking, yet were excited to head to Zermatt. We figured this would be our chance to stop and see this great beast.
Till this trip, we have never come this way.
Part of it is logistical: the Matterhorn and Zermatt are isolated up a deep valley. You have to go there, not be passing by.
Part of it is the expense. As a resort town, Zermatt is one of the most expensive. The room alone for these two nights sucks up almost a week’s worth of lodging costs for us.
When I planned this part of the trip, I looked into climbing the Matterhorn. By law, you have to have a guide. I figured I could ship my gear over, reserve a guide online… but when I looked into it, you have to go on several training climbs first before the two day big event. Again, the cost is prohibitive, at least if we are going to be traveling for an extended time.
So, we are going to Zermatt with one goal: to see the Matterhorn.
If we have time and the weather holds, we will go hike to a lake high on the Rothorn.
We took a train 30 minutes up-valley to Visp. Visp has a very clean little train station with self-service luggage lockers, if you want to stop over and explore the town. We connected to an inter-regional train that took an hour to move up the side valley to Zermatt. As we headed to the Italian border, the canyon narrowed and waterfalls came off the cliffs. Old stone bridges arched gracefully and sturdy over a grey-blue river, rapid flowing glacier melt. Every house is a cute, wooden Swiss chalet, each village is adorable. The valley is deep, sheer rock cliffs on both sides. Old houses and barns have bleached skulls with antlers over the doors. It is bright green; the grass, trees, and flowers are everywhere.
At Stalden we stopped in a village of tall houses, stacked up the hillside, every house decked with flowers overflowing from the balconies. The town is halfway up the mountain from the river, in a slightly wider spot. As we pulled into the village, a bright red gondola was descending to the station, looking like it would crash into us. It is like something out of a story-book.
As we wound up the valley, huge snow covered peaks slid in and out of view, capped by clouds.
We passed through St. Niklaus, waving to Santa as we passed through. The town itself is not as cute as the concept, however.
By Täsch the river was grey, and glaciers peeked over the tops of the valley walls. There was more grey rock and less green trees, but the valley widened out a little.
The Matterhorn never actually comes into view at all until you are actually into Zermatt. It is high on the right side.
At least, it would be if we could see it.
I suppose that is not fair. I can see the base, and to the summit on the right side at times. But it holds the clouds like a sweater holds fuzz-balls, they just cling and shift a little.
We have a great room at the Alpen Rose, out at the upper end of Zermatt. We are right on the river, with a full-on view of the Matterhorn when it decides to show itself. The roar of the steel grey river drowns out any street noise we may have, and we have a clear view of the forests and valley. Fortunately for us, it is a great place to hang out.
After we dropped our things, we walked out to see the town and get something to eat for lunch. We decided to have our big meal now, and stopped a few doors up at Restaurant Alpenblick. We sat under the yellow umbrellas and ordered, a deer sirloin steak with mushroom and bacon sauce for me, and trout, grilled in foil for Gail. I also ordered a starter of puff pastry in a mushroom cream sauce.
The food was excellent, if very expensive, and in fact Gail says it is the best meal of the trip so far. I will say the venison was the most tender I have ever had, and the puff pastry really combined well with the wine, bringing out the earthy texture of the Pinot Gamay blend from Sion.
As we ate, the song "Good Life" by One Republic came on, and I thought, "Yes it is."
There is a real mix of modern wood and glass condo housing, with old original log and stone buildings. Some places they have lifted the original buildings to preserve them, and simply build around them. The main street through town is what you would expect, high end retail stores catering to tourists with trinket fetishes, and the outdoor crowd with top of the line, very expensive climbing, hiking, cycling and skiing gear. Every second place is a bar, but you can tell summer is the “slow” season here.
The impression is that Zermatt is almost all condos and hotels, with more going up.
There is an old fashioned band playing in the town square, an accordion, long horn, guys playing spoons and broomsticks.
We found the laundry, and we can simply drop the bag in the morning and pick it up the same afternoon.
With the river racing through town, and the mountaineering shops and focus on one single mountain, this reminds me a lot of Chamonix, France.
Since we have such a great deck off our room, and had a huge lunch, we decided to eat in for dinner. A bottle of wine, a huge pretzel, a banana, and some Matterhorn chocolates and we were set. We watched the sun shift and finally set, but that mythical old beast, the Horned Matter, never did show itself the entire day.
Not a drizzle.
A full on gully washer.
The clouds are low, very low, and the mountains all disappear. The plan for today was to take the train, lift and then gondola up and up onto the side of Rothorn, enjoy the high mountain views, and hike 20KM around some lakes on our way back down. But we ended up changing plans as the rain went on and on, and I realized it would be a waste of CHF80 each (ticket price for the train-lift-gondola, one way) to go hike in the fog.
So, Gail slept in while I grabbed coffee downstairs, then took our bag of laundry to be done.
The rain kept coming.
As I walked back to the room, at 8:45 exactly, the first thunder boomed out, right as the cathedral bells struck. It is an awesome melding of sounds, the booming and rumble with the bing-bong-bong of the bells. The first three note of “Three Blind Mice.”
By 9:30 the lightning is going of, and the lifts are stopped.
It is raining so hard even the goats are staying in today.
Here are a couple quaint and charming things about Zermatt.
The goats.
There is a herd of goats. Local goats. They live above the town at night, and go to pasture below the town during the day. The fastest way from home to pasture and back is right down main street. So, at 17:30 the goats are herded through town, and then they are taken back out to pasture in the morning.
There is no real car traffic.
Sort of.
All the vehicles in town are electric. If you drive here, you have to park down valley, out of town, and shuttle in. Great idea. The taxis are electric little boxes on wheels, as are the police “cars.” The one bus that makes the rounds is electric, and so are the garbage and construction trucks. They sneak up on you at times, silent except for the whirrrring. Trucks are better because they rattle some.
All the vehicles are pretty narrow, to fit through the streets. The ones I am most fascinated watching are these kind of sideways forklift trucks. Small, narrow, the forks come out of the side and lift whatever up onto the bed of the truck. So they park beside whatever it is that needs picked up, or beside the place to drop something.
I ordered lamb ravioli with mushroom and peppermint. The ravioli was fantastic. Mint and lamb, what a great combo. It paired perfectly with the recommended Pinot Noir wine. The ravioli was stuffed with lamb, which melted in my mouth; the rest of the ingredients were i the sauce or layered on top.
Gail got the mittagsmenu with salad, fish and dessert. Her salad was presented with an array of colors, perfectly weighted and in balance. It tasted as good as it looked. The fish was the lightest batter I ever tasted, on very fresh fish. With the lemon… perfection.
I was so impressed with the food that I ordered a second round of chicken and curry wraps. I asked him to pair the wine, and ended up with a spicy rojo from Spain, a 2009 Merlot. The wraps were good, the curry not overwhelming. The wine was better by itself, rather than paired with the food.
Gail's dessert was apricot compote with chocolate mousse, strawberry, mint leaf and apricot.
I got a cafe espresso in a gold mirrored cup. It turned out that lunch was a gastronomic gallery.
So we got out and walked between rain storms. Up the river, down the river. Part ways up a trail.
Always carrying the umbrellas.
We went in a few stores, hung out down in the little cafe attached to the hotel, and in our room.
I bought a Matterhornli at the chocolate store: a little dark chocolate Matterhorn, topped with white chocolate snow, and filled with soft chocolate yummy stuff.
We read and watched the BBC, Al Jazeera and CNBC.
All the day the fictional Matterhorn was like a coy mistress, never fully revealing herself.
Perhaps I’ll never see it.
Perhaps it doesn't really exist.