Zermatt

Zermatt is a car free village at high altitude of 1,608 m (5,276 ft). It is a very popular tourist destination to board the scenic train glacier express. We did not opt for the glacier express for lack of time and more importantly we felt the 8 hours would be better spent walking around the place rather than sitting on a train. It is a resort town with electric golf car type of vehicles used for transport. It is majorly a holiday village with beautiful aesthetically designed resort hotels spread from inch to inch. We reached Zermatt late in the night and it was around 10 p.m. by the time we got into our hotel. I must mention that this was the cosiest and loveliest hotel room of our trip. It was modern chic with a touch of cosiness and felt really comfortable. When we left from Interlaken it was pretty warm and so both Jay and I were in shorts. By the time we reached Zermatt at night, it was really cold and we were standing out in the crowd sporting shorts at 8 degree Celsius temperatures!

We met a lovely elderly couple on the train to Zermatt. They were scheduled to take the glacier express the following day.  Both of them worked on developing English tests and the lady was a language expert being adept in Latin, German, Spanish and many more languages. We joked that the adage “ greek and latin” would be lost on her  because she actually understood Latin. Ok it was funnier than it sounds here.  Of course the gentleman was kind enough to point out that our shorts were pretty unsuitable for the location. We chatted casually on a lot of other things and the stimulating conversation with them really livened up the boring night train journey because the scenic sights outside were lost in the darkness.

After changing into something warm, we headed out at half past ten, only to realize all the restaurants in our vicinity were shut. If there is one thing you need to know about Jake, it is that he cannot sleep on an empty or even slightly empty stomach. With grim hopes of finding food, I had begun to prepare myself for the wrath of his stomach growls. If there is another thing you need to know about Jay it is that he is also resourceful when he needs to get to something. He managed to get into a restaurant that was just closing and ask him if he was still serving. The owner unfortunately declined, but an American guy who was present there gave us directions to another place that would be serving food. Having thanked him profusely, we went in search of this other place. It was an American style restaurant. We had the best aubergine pizza that night and thanked the heavens for giving us food!

When we woke up in the morning, the place looked completely different. We could see Zermatt right from our hotel.  It was a nice clear day and lovely to walk about and explore the city. We walked towards the Matterhorn which is a famous pyramidal mountain. It was another very different and scenic experience. Clear blue skies, green slopes and a white snow capped pyramidal mountain.

We spent as much time as we could and then prepared to head to Geneva airport where we’d have to bid goodbye to Switzerland and begin our Parisian holiday.