Lucerne, Switzerland to Zermatt, Switzerland – September 21, 2012

We arrived in Zermatt, Switzerland safely at about 11:30 AM this morning.  It was a long travel day, even though we were only on the three different trains for a total duration of about 3.5 hours.  We got up this morning at 5:45 AM (yeah, nice relaxing vacation) so that we could get ready, finish the last minute packing, and still have time for some breakfast at the hotel before we headed to the train station to make our 8:00 AM train.  We had debated yesterday whether to forgo the breakfast at the hotel and try and make the 7:00 AM train instead of the 8:00 AM train.  The earlier departure would get us into Zermatt an hour earlier, and possibly miss some of the commuter traffic.  However, the drawbacks of missing the good breakfast at the hotel, and the need to get up even earlier than 5:45 AM so that we could get ready, finish packing and check out, and have time for the 15 minute walk to the train station outweighed the benefit.

We opted for the 8:00 AM departure time and enjoyed our nice breakfast and a leisurely walk to the train station.  As we arrived at the station, the train we were going to be taking was just arriving, and we still had over 20 minutes before our scheduled departure.  That enabled us to secure front facing seats, store our luggage, and be set to go before most of the other connecting passengers even boarded.

We had three different trains to ride before making it to our destination in Zermatt.  We left Lucerne on our way to the first stop in Bern, Switzerland, which was about a hour away.  In Bern, we quickly made a change in platforms to board our train to Visp, Switzerland.  This was a regional train, and it was really full.  We barely found seats and luggage storage space once we boarded the train.  This train made a few more stops than the previous one, and was much slower in overall speed.   It was a double deck train, and we found seats on the top deck near the restaurant car.  Upon arriving a little late in Visp, we hustled over to another platform to make the final train connection into Zermatt, all the while  thinking we only had a few minutes to make the train.  However, as soon as we rushed onto the platform, and saw that the train had not yet arrived.  The station was also making an announcement that the train to Zermatt was running about 10 minutes late.  There were quite a lot of other people heading to Zermatt, so we knew this train would also be crowded.

The train arrived and we had to move down the platform to get to a second class car since the area we were initially standing in was for the first class cars, which were in the middle of this train.  We boarded, stowed our luggage, and found two seats across from each other next to another couple.  This was a “panoramic” car, so it had large windows and then some upper narrow windows at the top area where the car side curved to meet the roof.  These extra upper windows allowed you to see the tops of the mountains as we rode by them.

The views on this train were fantastic, although it would have been a little better sitting next to the windows instead of the aisle seats we had.  The train actually climbed up some fairly steep inclines as it slowly progressed towards Zermatt.  We made several stops in some really small Alpine cities, and in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, we reached the Zermatt Station.

It was roughly a 300 meter walk from the train station to the hotel, all down the main street of the town.  Zermatt  is a cross between a skiing town and a hiking town, many of the stores are geared to supporting these two outdoor activities.  Hiking is certainly predominate this time of year, but skiing is available year round up on the glaciers. We could feel the altitude difference already, the town of Zermatt is at an elevation of 1, 620 meters (5,314 feet)

Our room at the hotel was not yet ready, so we once again stored our luggage in a secured area, first having to change from “train  travel” mode to “sightseeing” mode, meaning changing out several items from our suitcases into our backpacks, including the camera gear.

We headed out to try and ride a few of the cable cars in the area, knowing that the weather forecast for tomorrow was for cloudy skies and some rain.  Since we wanted to get some good photos of the Matterhorn, which is the main attraction of this area, we headed to the Rothorn/Sunnegga set of lifts.

We purchased a three day travel pass, which allows us unlimited rides on the cable cars and local electric bus service.  All of the vehicles in Zermatt are electric, including the City buses, the taxis, delivery trucks and hotels shuttles for the hotels that have them (ours did not).  They are small little electric vans that really scoot along.

The initial portion of the lift ride goes to the first hiking area called Sunnegga.  This portion of the journey is inside of a tunnel the entire way.  You initially walk about 150 meters into the mountain in a horizontal tunnel, then board a cog railway that transports you up the mountain, inside of a tunnel the entire way.  It goes pretty quickly up the mountain and has about 1,000 meters in elevation change.  We exited there and took a few photos before heading up the next portion of the mountain in some smaller 6 person Gondolas.

Once we exited the gondolas, we boarded a large cable car for the rest of the journey up to Rothorn.

There were not many people on the cable car with us, making it an enjoyable and peaceful ride.  The cable car appeared to hold 100 or more persons, it was hard to tell since there were only 6 people on board for our journey.

Rothorn is at an elevation of 3,103 meters (10,180 feet), and there were spectacular views of the Matterhorn and surrounding mountain peaks.  We hiked around  looking for a good photo spot.  You could tell the air was thin as we climbed up and down on the trails.

You could see one of the glaciers from this area, and several of the small, but really clear lakes formed by the glaciers in the past.

We boarded the cable car, and then the gondolas for the journey back down to Sunnegga.  Then we were back on the cog train for the remaining journey back down to Zermatt.  We walked back to the hotel to check in since it was now about 2:30 PM, and the room was supposed to be ready.

We walked past some really old wooden cabins, dating back to the 16th century.  We believe it is an historic portion of the town that is preserved as part of a museum.

Arriving at the hotel, we checked in and the desk attendant, who might be the owner, led us to our room.  According to the attendant, our room was supposedly an upgrade, although we were not sure what the difference was from our original reservation, since it was no more specific than telling us it was a “double room”.  We did end up on the front side of the hotel in a room on the third floor with a balcony, and did have a nice view of the Matterhorn mountain from our balcony.  The entire hotel was recently upgraded, and the room was very nice inside with all new furniture, a nice double size bed, and a large bathroom.  Real upgrade or not, we were very pleased with the room.

We headed out to get a quick bite to eat for a late lunch.  Afterward, we walked to the other end of the town, looking for the Matterhorn Glacier lift, which goes up to the highest point in the area.  Since we had the three day passes, our plan was to just ride up to the top, and then ride  back down.  The initial portion of the ride up was in an eight person gondola, and then the next leg of the trip was in a large cable car.

We were there in time to take the last cable car of the day to what we thought was the top of the mountain, and we would only have 15 minutes to walk around before we needed to board the final car for the ride down.  We initially thought this cable car went to the top, but there was actually another separate cable car to go the remaining distance, and that was already closed for the day.  The intermediate area we arrived at is called Trockener Steg, at an elevation of 2,939 meters (9,643 ft).  The actual top of the mountain in this area is called Klein Matterhorn, and is at an elevation of 3,883 meters (12,379 feet).  There is a restaurant and a hotel in Trockener Steg, and this is also the area where there is skiing year round on the glaciers.  We will have to try and go up the remainder of the distance tomorrow, or early on Sunday.

When we got ready to board the cable car in Trockener Steg for the trip down, we found out that the cable car that had brought us up had never made it to the bottom with the people that had boarded after we got off.  There was an electrical problem, and it took about 30 minutes for it to be repaired before the car came back up, and they allowed us to board for the journey back down.  Stephanie was not thrilled with the fact that the car had broken down right before we got on, but we made it down without further incident.  We rode down the next portion on the 8 person gondolas accompanied by a man from an area nearby to Zermatt who had been hiking on the glaciers all day.  He spoke pretty good English, and told us about his many trips to the US, some to see some relatives in and around Missouri.  He actually worked for the Swiss train company SBB.

We walked back to the hotel to relax before heading out to get some dinner.  Later, we ended up in a German restaurant that was having a buffet in celebration of the start of Oktoberfest tomorrow (Saturday) in Munich.  The food was good, it was nice to try out some different sausages, and roasted pig knees, which is a popular German dish.  The restaurant was not very crowded, possibly because it was after 8:30 PM, but the remaining guests were having a good time.  It appeared that they may have known the owner, who was dressed up in some traditional German Oktoberfest clothing.

We walked back to the hotel to process pictures for posting to the photo albums, and work on the blog.  It had been a long day, and we knew we would sleep well.  We won’t need to get up early tomorrow since the weather may be rainy, and we may not have much to see in the rain and cloud shrouded mountains.  We may just ride some of the cable cars anyway since we have the passes.  Maybe they will go above the clouds, or we may be able to see some snow falling.