Zermatt should be illegal

I mean, come on, there’s no way something so stunning could ever be legal, there must be drugs in the air. 

It’s literally impossible to capture the beauty of this small town. I was grinning like a fool throughout my walks through the town — and that was just the town.

The scenery around, buried in a valley Zermatt is surrounded by such stunning mountain, including the famous Matterhorn itself

I look through my photos of the town and none of do it justice.

Of note is that there are no cars in Zermatt, just tiny electric vehicles — and only special ones, no Tesla’s in sight. Tom Scott did an excellent video on it. https://youtu.be/R2oD1ZHNMFE

Up and up

The morning brings my journey up the mountain — not to the peak in the photo above, but to the Matterhorn Glacier Park, which sits right next to it.

It’s a short 15 minute walk (or bus if you’re lazy and don’t like the stunning vista as you walk) to the gondola station. And then it’s up, up, and up. The gondola makes multiple stops along the way, as it serves all the skiers, they can ski down a field and take a ride back up without having to go all the way down (from the top it takes about an hour, if you ski fast, to get from the top to the bottom).

I’m just going to dump a bunch of photos from the ride up — 1600m (5300ft) to 3900m (12800ft).

Once you get to the top, you reach the main ski fields, the visitor centre, restaurant, and ice caves.

As I understand these ice sculptures are more or less permanent, the ice doesn’t thaw up here.

Now the obligatory selfies

The highest viewing platform is 3,896m (12,784ft) up. This is as high as I’ve been since the Nepal trip.

Why was I here? What drove me to take trains half way across Europe? My oxygen saturation stats were 85-90% unacclimatised at that altitude. That’s within limits, to go back to serious altitude. 

Ooops, no train!

Long story short, stopped in Visp by a rockfall on the tracks to Zermatt. Waiting for the bus, that doesn’t leave till 22:40. This will result in me getting to the hostel rather late 😂.

Tomorrow is Matterhorn Glacier Park, was intending it to be an early start, might give myself a few more hours sleep. 

In the meantime, Guinness is keeping me warm.

Rest Day

Date: 1st Feb

Today was very much a rest day, and a real rest day at that. Nothing specific planned, nothing to pack for tomorrow, no big journeys the next day, just rest. It's also the start of the slower pace of the rest of my trip. From now on I spend at least two full days in each stop, and for a few stops, I spend 4 or more whole days. It's almost a holiday!

But today was spent in Ferney-Voltaire, a small French town that borders Switzerland. Being in France, it's a lot cheaper to do, well, anything. Switzerland is so damn expensive. A basic small burger at a pub is NZD$30. A pint of bitter is NZD$12. I'm not even going to calculate how much a glass of Lagavulin would have cost, I didn't buy it as I'm fairly sure my bank would ring up the next day demanding payment or they'd go under.

A late lunch was at an Italian restaurant, I know it sounds terrible to do so, and I should have been at a French cafe, but the cafes were either closed or had more beer than food.

I've found in my travels here that the best food for a region is found outside that region. Best French food, Italy. Best Italian, definitely France, best bangers-and-mash, Switzerland. I haven't had haggis, but I bet the best version would be in Netherlands or Germany or something.

Tomorrow we head to CERN.

Welcome to Italy

Time: 1131h

We just pass over the border into Italy. Switzerland was a beautiful place, it started to snow as we left. 

Swiss Alps

We are nestled in a valley between two ridges, the sheer cliffs on either side of us defy imagination. It's as if someone took a knife to a cake roll and cut out the middle bit. There's a waterfall they light at night and it is quite beautiful, but photographs do not do it justice.

The clouds roll through this valley with some frequency - but only briefly. The cliffs reveal themselves and 5 minutes later they will be shrouded in clouds, not longer later they are exposed again.

We are at 2600ft, and whilst cold, it's not snowing - indeed it's that dangerous time with rain where temperatures are on either side of zero. The water falls and quickly turns to ice.

There is a beautiful covering of snow on the mountains, I'd say it's like a postcard but this is the country where those sorts of postcard pictures are taken.

I'm spending the day relaxing, not because I'm tired, but because this environment seems to provoke a reaction of enjoying the environment. Whilst I could be up on the mountain by taking the train all the way to the highest place in Europe, but that seems almost wrong to me. Somewhere that high should not be that easy to reach.

The trains here tend to be short and push their carriages, it's slightly more efficient to do so, and when you're doing these slopes, every Newton matters.

I was going to do the skydiving, but sadly it was cancelled today due to poor weather. I don't mind, this is the sort of place where it's difficult to mind anything.

Location: Lauterbrunne, Switzerland

Altitude: 2600ft

Temperature: 2°C

Music: Ave Maria

Bandwidth in the Swiss Alps

So it turns out that it's hard to get Internet in the Swiss Alps. Lots been happening, but this is the first chance I've had to write anything, and now I can't upload much, if any.

I'll keep it short, stuff happening

Am in Lauterbrunne in Switzerland, and there's a giant cliff beside us. I'll take photos and upload them at some point in the next few days.

Temperature: 3°C

Location: Lauterbrunne, Switzerland

Internet: really unreliable

Altitude: 2600ft (800m)