Return to Zermatt

The temperature last night dropped to -4.8c, so this morning the bathroom sink would not drain, the outside water barrel had frozen and the front locker box was jammed by ice. So it took us several hours to sort ourselves out. It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue, so we headed for Zermatt.

Time to sunbathe?

We left the car in the wonderful underground parking next to Randa train station. With its incredible huge steel doors which open automatically, this car park is probably the best one we have ever found. That was the good news, the bad news was paying for the train tickets to Zermatt, which cost a staggering 56 CHF which is £36, for a 15 minute journey (return = 30 mins). But the train just arrived as we payed for tickets, so on we hopped. The trains had certainly improved, with great big windows, seating higher up, and all very new.

The square at Zermatt had not changed, where the train pulled in. It was nice and quiet, apart from lots of mini electric taxis that buzzed around the town, sometimes at quiet a speed. We walked down to the river, which was still running slowly. We then found a wonderful bistro, where a very pleasant lady asked if we were British, and then spoke to us in very good English. We had a great lunch there and then followed the river up to the church and on to
the main road all the way to the end of village.

A very tired Santa

The weather was brilliant, and the views even better.

We had a pleasant stroll back along the main road, and found an ice rink with a very friendly cat who really, really wanted to make friends.

As it was still only 4pm, but it was starting to get colder, we decided to get a train up into the mountains, to Gornergrat. There was only a couple of us on it, and as we pulled away from Zermatt, the views of the Matterhorn were very impressive.

It was great fun riding further and further up into the sky, and at the very top we were actually in the clouds. We had about 10 minutes to walk around at the last station, but at minus 17 degrees, we did not stay long. The journey back down the mountains meant that we could see the Matterhorn bathed in the last remnants of daylight, and Zermatt all lit up.

We finally caught the train back to Randa, and after collecting the car from the very safe car park, we returned to the van to watch "The Sound of Music".