Day 7 – Hiking around Zermatt

We awoke this morning, looked out the window, and apparently we do have a view of the Matterhorn! The bad weather has apparently cleared; at least for now.

We had a nice breakfast, and got ready to go out hiking. The nice thing about hiking here, is that there are a lot of lifts to take you up into alpine areas from where to begin your hike. This is different than what I’m used to in Canada, where you might spend the first couple of hours, slogging through the trees for the first 1,000 feet of ascent before you get out of the forest to start enjoying the views. Of course, the downside of this accessibility, is that you do have to put up with a bit of unsightly lift infrastructure, and there is a bit more development around. I guess that’s a reasonable trade-off.

We took an underground funicular lift from Zermatt up to Sunnegga, and from there, took a gondola up to Blauherd, from where we began our hike. Our plan was to hike around to some of the alpine lakes in the area (which I suspect are damned up a bit to serve as ponds for snowmaking in the winter ski season), work our way back down to Sunnegga, and then take the funicular back down to Zermatt.

We didn’t have any electronic maps installed on my GPS, but I still had it running so I could keep a track of where we went. Below is our track overlaid on a topo map of the area.

Below is a graph of the elevation of the hike.

Maximum elevation reached was 2,595 metres and minimum was 2,151 metres, covering a total of 11.5 km with an average speed (when moving) of 4.0 km/h.

Here is what our hike looks like on Google Earth, oriented with the town of Zermatt at the top centre of the photo, and Matterhorn off to the upper left but outside of the image.

Here we are at the beginning of our hike, with the Matterhorn hiding slightly behind a small cloud.

Nadine walking along the trail, heading east from Blauherd.

Looking back towards the Matterhorn…

Continuing along the hike…

Looking up at the Rothorn above…

Arriving at Stellisee.

We stopped here to have a bite to eat at the end of the lake and relax in the stunning views!

Looking down at the Gant ski lift station from the trail on the cliff above.

We stopped here for another rest, because it looked like a nice spot to take in the scenery.

As we descended further, we started to see more and more trees around.

Here we are at Grindjisee.

Continuing along the hike, the weather remains sunny, but that same light cloud still sits in front of the Matterhorn, which has been blocking a clear view of the iconic peak for much of the day.

On the way up the hill from Moosjisee toward Sunnegga, there was a lovely view over a small village with the Matterhorn in the background. Unfortunately, due to the time of day and the position of the sun, it was difficult getting a good photograph to do it justice, but here’s my best attempt.

On the final stretch toward Leisee and Sunnegga…

Back at Sunnegga, we caught the train back to Zermatt.

Along the walk back to the hotel, Nadine found a new friend eating grass in a local yard.

Back at the hotel, we got cleaned up from our hike, and headed down to the spa to relax in the hot pools before having a nice late dinner at the hotel.

Day 6 – Arrival in Zermatt

The weather today would be a bit overcast and with occasional light rain, so it’s probably good that today was planned as a travel day. We checked out of our hotel in Montreux, and boarded a train for Visp. In Visp we changed to a different line, which would take us up through the valley in the mountains towards Zermatt.

The train moved slowly as it climbed through the valley. Here are some photos of the train ride.

Upon arrival in Zermatt, which is the end of the line, we were met by a driver from our hotel. There are no private vehicles allowed in Zermatt (although there are some commercial and construction vehicles around), so we were taken by horse drawn wagon. It was not very far, and we likely could have walked it in about 3 minutes, but it’s a service the hotel provides to all of their guests.

We’re staying at the Mont Cervin Palace, in a very nice 2-level suite. We have a nice view of the Matterhorn from our balcony, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get a photo. The cloudy weather today meant the famous mountain was in hiding.

Here are some pictures of our lovely room.

Lots of storage along the entrance hallway…

Including a walk-in closet…

The living room was very spacious…

The bedroom was upstairs in a loft overlooking the living room and included a skylight above…

We had a nice welcome amenity left for us.

After getting settled in our room, we went out to explore the town and to figure out where everything is. Here is the main street in front of our hotel.

Many of the houses had extensive gardens.

I’m not quite sure what these buildings are.

I’ve never seen a building foundation quite like this!

And here we are back at the hotel.

We’re hoping for good weather tomorrow, so we can get out and do some hiking.

Day 5 – Chocolate and Cheese

The weather cleared up, and we had partly cloudy skies with no rain for today.  There are many different things to see and do here, so it’s a difficult decision, but we decided to fill our day with chocolate, cheese, trains and boats.

We started the day on our balcony and were treated to this beautiful sight.

We then had breakfast before walking down to the train station, where we would take the Golden Pass line across the mountains behind Montreux, toward the town of Broc-Fabric where we would take a tour of the Cailler chocolate factory.

The train slowly climbed up the mountain, ascending a series of switchbacks and tunnels and we slowly make our way up and over the pass.

We reached the Montbovon station where we changed trains to a different line.

The train carried us past many farms in the rolling countryside.

We arrived at Broc-Fabrique and found the chocolate factory.

Here is Nadine posing with a large chocolate bar outside.

The tour was interesting, but the best part was the tasting!

After the tour, we headed back to the train station to go to the village of Gruyères to visit a cheese factory, and also to have a good fondue lunch in the medieval town up the hill from the train station.

We returned to Montreux by train, and when transferring to the second train, we were treated to a classic first class carriage, which we had completely to ourselves. This was a nice surprise, as the train we took up in the morning didn’t have anything like this.

Here we are coming back into Montreux.

It was getting late in the day, but since it was a nice day, we thought we’d run down to the pier and try to grab a lake boat somewhere. We didn’t really care where it went, but wanted to see something by water. We arrived just as the last boat of the day was ready to depart for Vevey, where we would change to a different ship to get the last boat back again to Montreux.

These boats are part of the Swiss public transportation system, and are included with out travel passes. Because we have first class passes, we were able to ride on the top deck for better views.

Here is our hotel as seen from the water.

The town of Vevey looks very nice, but we didn’t get to spend much time here.

After arriving back in Montreux, we walked back to the hotel to freshen up, and headed across the street to the hotel’s terrace restaurant for a nice dessert.

My night photos don’t always turn out so well, but here are a couple of pictures from after our dessert.

It was a very full day, and now it’s time for bed!