The majestic, mostly cloud covered Matterhorn!

Trip Start Apr 27, 2005

Trip End Sep 06, 2005

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Switzerland Zermatt, Switzerland
Sunday, July 31, 2005

* Zermatt is not the most exciting or cheapest town in Switzerland but it does have one thing going for it and that's the majestic Matterhorn (the most famous peak in the Alps, although not the highest). The train ride from Gryon to Zermatt was extremely scenic even though it was raining and walking to our hostel was a bit of a bugger because it was such a long way from the train station (but that's what you get for booking cheap accommodation)! Since it was raining (although not too heavily now), there was a lot of cloud cover about and of course we couldn't see the mighty Matterhorn ... bugger!!! Thankfully it stopped raining soon enough though and most of the clouds gave way to blue, blue sky but, not surprisingly (because we don't have too much luck with these kind of things as I'll explain more about in a later email), the Matterhorn was still covered in cloud ... bugger again! We waited and waited and waited and finally we got a small glimpse of the peak so I snapped a few pics and then we waited and waited a bit more until about 3/4 of it came in to view at which point I went a little crazy with the picture taking (but with the digital camera so it was ok because we deleted most of them later) and that was that ... the clouds enveloped the mountain again for the rest of our stay!

Our other highlight in Zermatt was bumping into a couple of funny Canadian brothers who we first met in a beer hall in Munich. We asked them to join us (and another Aussie girl who we were travelling with) for dinner and that was all good, although we ended up with more pomme frites than we could shake a stick at! The stupid menu and waiter failed to mention that our burgers came with chips and so we ordered an extra two platters of them between us. Now surely you would tell unknowing tourists that we wouldn't need another two extra platters of them if the meal already came with them but alas no! Anyway, completely stuffed with frites (we didn't let them go to waste because they cost us a lot of Swiss Francs), we retired to our hostel because we couldn't find anywhere cheap enough to drink in town and the Canadian blokes had a surplus of drinks that they insisted we drink ... and so we did! Now the youngest of the brothers (Steven) had a bit of a thing for hard spirits and had picked up a bottle of Metaxa from Austria (I think it's something similar to Brandy although I'm not sure). Well, lets just say that finishing off 3/4 of a bottle of Metaxa (40%) in one go is not the smartest thing in the world to do ... especially if done by just one person!!! The bottle was leaking so Steven felt the need for it to be finished off and as it was so potent the rest of us didn't want a bar of it so he finished it off himself! Now picture drinking this hard stuff just before you go to bed ... hmmm! Unfortunately we were in the same dormitory as him and we could hear it rolling around in his belly from way across the room and lets just say there wasn't a pretty ending ... there were chips and Metaxa all over the shop about 10 minutes after him passing out and he didn't even know it as he was still fast asleep!!! And, to make things worse, he was on a top bunk and there was a poor Japanese girl below ... we felt so sorry for her!!! All I can say is that thankfully his brother was there to help clean up because I sure as heck wasn't going to do it ... The End!

Zermatt hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry