Tag Archives: zermatt

Thursday, July 10, 2025– Gornergrat Tour and the Matterhorn, and Zermatt

Posted on by
1

After breakfast we met at the train station and caught a cogwheel railway through the adjacent Alps to Gornergrat. The top two photos below are from our hotel room window.

Opened in 1898, the Gornergrat cogwheel train is the world’s oldest electric mountain railway still in operation and has been built solely for tourist purposes. The 33-minute ride is incredibly scenic: the train offers a birds-eye view of Zermatt with the Matterhorn silhouette towering over it, lakes, forests, and numerous other peaks, valleys, and glaciers. From the top of Gornergrat, a mountain summit after which the railway is named, one can admire spectacular 360-degree views of Matterhorn and 29 other 4000-meter high peaks, as well as Gorner Glacier. 

Along the way, the views of Matterhorn were near breathtaking. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I’d see this famous, spectacular mountain. 

Gornergrat (10,285 feet) is a rocky ridge of the Pennine Alps, overlooking the Corner Glacier southeast of Zermatt.

Gornergrat, upper right corner of photo

At the top of Gornergrat, the views of several glaciers overpowered the surrounding landscape. 

After loads of photos, Kay and I caught the cogwheel railcar and rode “down” to the first stop from the top, Station Rotenoden. At the stop an ensemble of people dressed in native costumes played music commonly associated with the Swiss Alps on Alpine horns and an accordion. Their appearance was at the entrance to an Alpine garden containing many plants in full bloom. This was also the “trailhead” where we began an almost 3 mile hike down the mountain and around a lake to the next “whistle stop”, Station Riffleberg. This was our favorite day of the entire trip.

Back at the the town of Zermatt, we made our way to the hotel, not realizing how tired we really were—and the twenty minute walk was mostly uphill. 

As for Zermatt, it remains almost completely free of internal combustion vehicles—apart from the local police service which uses a Volkswagen car, and the refuse collection lorry. It can be reached by train only and electric vehicles are used locally.. These electric vehicles, mostly small trucks and vans, are plentiful and driven very fast in the narrow cobblestone streets. Along with bicycles everywhere, walkers must remain on alert at all times.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025–Zurich to Zermatt

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s post is all about travel from Zurich to Zermatt. We departed Zurich mid-morning Wednesday and traveled by bus to Chur.

We departed Zurich mid-morning Wednesday and traveled by bus to Chur. The scenery was magnificent.

Chur is an Alpine city in eastern Switzerland. It is Switzerland’s oldest city, dating back over 5,000 years. Winding streets in the car-free old town lead to the 13th-century, three-naved Cathedral of the Assumption. The Romanesque Cathedral was finished in 1272 after more than 100 years of construction.

We lunched at a cafe on the 5th floor atop a department store, Manor Chur, reminiscent of those in the “old” days of multistory department stores in Little Rock, Memphis, etc. Manor Chur provides a shopping experience for all the family; department store items, food, and the restaurant is all under one roof over an area of 86.000 square feet.

After lunch, we boarded the Glacier Express Railway in Chur for a panoramic journey to Zermatt. This was the highlight of the day. From Chur, the train follows the course of the Rhine through the gorge climbing slowly through alpine valleys. The train route slowly steepens to finally reach its summit, the Oberalp Pass (6,670 feet). From there the train continues is down and up journey, passing through several alpine villages before entering a lengthy tunnel. After the tunnel, the train follows the course of the Rhone River, and passes through more alpine villages before going through another spiral. After a steeper section the train finally arrives in Zermatt at 5,302 ft, after several hours of travel.

Aboard the Glacier Express, we were served adult beverages throughout the afternoon and a chicken curry based lunch which was quite good.

We arrived in Zermatt early in the evening, surprised to find that we were in the Viking group that had to walk 20 minutes to our hotel. We were quite disappointed as we expected better from Viking. Nevertheless, the walk was fine, and our hotel was 5-star rated and very nice indeed. In as much as it was near 9 pm, we unpacked enough to sleep and retired for the evening.

Zermatt is famed as a mountaineering and ski resort of the Swiss Alps. Until the mid-19th century, it was predominantly an agricultural community; the first and tragic ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 was followed by a rush on the mountains surrounding the village, leading to the construction of many tourist facilities. The year-round population (as of December 2020) is 5,820, though there may be several times as many tourists in Zermatt at any one time. Much of the local economy is based on tourism, with about half of the jobs in town in hotels or restaurants and just under half of all apartments are vacation apartments. Just over one-third of the permanent population was born in the town, while another third moved to Zermatt from outside Switzerland.