Originally we decided to take a trip to the Swiss Alps and the Matterhorn over Labor Day weekend because both the hubs and I had off that Monday. But we switched plans at the last minute because what teacher wants to go away on a trip the week after school begins??? Not this girl. I know myself. That weekend is meant for sleep and rejuvenation of my mind. The first week back to school for a teacher is absolutely exhausting, so it made way more sense to go on an adventure this weekend! So off we went!
We left at about 5:30 am on Friday, although hubs wanted to leave much much earlier than that. Leaving ridiculously early for trips is like an Eishen trademark. It may sound nuts, but we beat the traffic and still have the rest of the day to do stuff once we get to our destination.
Let me tell you, the Swiss Alps are some of the most beautiful mountains you will ever see in your life. They are green and rocky and snowy and surrounded by simplistic towns made of wood and flowers. There is no big business or commercialism to cheapen it up….just small town beauty.
But driving up the mountains is FRIGHTENING. The kind of scary where you sit on the edge of your seat as a passenger with one hand over your eyes and the other pressed against the dashboard. Why in the WORLD they do not have guardrails lining the entire road up the mountain is beyond me! It is STEEP, and windy, and STEEP.
We even passed a leg of the Haute Route, which is one of the most difficult bike races in the world! These guys were BIKING up the mountain. Sounds simple, but these dudes and dudettes were hurting. I kept giving them a thumbs up as we drove past…in the snow…at 4 degrees Celsius. I was in awe, really.
Got to Fiesch Eggishorn around 1:00 and took two cable cars up to the Altesch Glacier that is there. A GLACIER. I saw a glacier. I just like saying that.
It is in the valley between mountains at around 9,000 feet. It was SO COLD, people. And I’m sorry to say that the Eishens were not prepared for it. Well, we were prepared way down in the car, but we failed to put the winter jackets in our backpacks before heading to the top because we didn’t think it would be THAT cold. Well it was THAT cold. And snowy. And windy. Our hands were icicles…we were sorely unprepared. Shameful. If you know anything about the Eishens you know that we have 3 mottos:
1. always be prepared (ABP…”it’s just good sense”)
2. always leave early
3. if you can’t get out of it, get into it
We were 1 out of 3, sadly. But we had a chance to stay true and redeem ourselves because even though it was snowy and rainy and cloudy, the Eishens did not get out of it! (But we did decide to take a break and eat to see if the clouds would finally pass enough for a picture!)
Thankfully there was a tiny little restaurant named Horli-Hitta that we ate at. The guys (since they took a father/son hiking trip to Switzerland before school let out for the summer) introduced me to my first Swiss dish…roschti! Think hashbrowns with lots of stuff mixed in. I had mine with cheese and egg. It was good, but boy, was it heavy! I just couldn’t finish it all! But I could finish my espresso. You always finish your espresso.
After we ate, the clouds parted just long enough to finally see the Aletsch glacier! We ran out and got as many pictures as we could before the clouds rolled back in.
A snowflake got on my camera lens! 🙁
These pictures are deceiving…that glacier is HUGE, people. It looks small because of how far away it is, but it is incredible. I couldn’t believe I was standing there! You can actually go hike the glacier with crampons and everything. That would be insanely cool. It’s a tad hard to do with little kiddos, though….maybe next time.
We checked into the adorable Kastel Hotel in Zennegen in the late afternoon. We could’ve stayed in and around Zermatt, but you are looking at 300+ Euros a night for that experience. You can also get hotels in the city of Tasch, which is the next town over by train and where we parked to get to Zermatt, but it is always pretty pricey considering we need a triple room with the four of us. (And seeing as though the COUNTRY of Switzerland was 97% full because France, Germany and Switzerland are all on summer break right now, it wasn’t going to happen.) Zennegen is a 45 minute drive from Tasch, which has the train station. We had one hotel room with 3 beds and paid around 175 Euros, which is way more than we normally pay but was all that was available since we booked so late. It worked for us and was quite comfortable. We don’t need anything fancy.
The view from our balcony! We even got a rainbow!
That evening we ate dinner in our hotel room and hit the sack early. Early the next morning we got up, ate a Swiss breakfast down in the hotel (bread, cheese, coffee, chocolate) and drove 45 minutes to the town of Tasch to take the train to Zermatt. Zermatt is a car-free town, so you must take a train to get there (or be rich cool and take a helicopter).
Thing 2 loved the train! He’s so into transportation right now…trucks, airplanes, trains. The choo choo sounds were too cute to handle!
The train ride to Zermatt took only 12 minutes. The moment we arrived I fell in love. If you want a quaint Swiss town, this is the town to go to. Plus, you are looking right up at the Matterhorn (unless there are clouds, which there were for us!). Most of the buildings are sided with deep, dark wooden panels. That paired with the vibrant flowers hung over every balcony makes you want to sit out there and sip coffee all day.
These look like little run down shacks, but they are actually renovated inside to be posh hotels! You find real shacks like this all over Switzerland, but these are NOT cheap!
Zermatt is a hiker’s dream. You can hike/mountain bike/scooter/run (yes, there is a Matterhorn marathon that people actually run…crazies) much of the way up the Matterhorn ridgeline. We chose to take the gondola to the Schwarzsee station, which is the second station up from Zermatt. There is excellent hiking from there, so we started with that.
The kids LOVED the gondola!
I’m pointing to the Matterhorn!! You can’t tell, really, but if you look closely up in those clouds you’ll see the faint outline. The clouds just wouldn’t part!! The best pic I have is the one below:
Little church by the lake
Up a little higher…
Up even higher…
Thing 1 sitting by the cairn he made.
We were on our way to hike up to a little shack to get even closer views of the Matterhorn when Thing 1 tripped and cut his hand open pretty good. He was yelling and it was bleeding quite a bit. My husband came to the rescue and turned the entire thing into a science lesson to calm him down. He even introduced a new word of the day: coagulate.
We went ahead and turned around instead of hiking any longer because we didn’t want kiddo to hurt his hand any more and it would’ve taken a lot longer without him being able to use it. We took a break at a restaurant right by the gondola drop. There were two guys playing Springsteen music, so we had a beer and took turns running around with Thing 2 since he had been cooped up in the backpack carrier the whole time. It was the perfect way to end the hiking portion of our trip!
We headed back into Zermatt and shopped a little more before getting on the train to head home. I even ran into a fellow teacher-friend! Small world, seriously!
The only thing I regret from this trip is not getting our cowbell souvenir. They sell the big cowbells that cows wear around their necks in the farms here. We had seen some, but we decided to wait to see if we saw any other ones. We ended up forgetting to get it and now we are cowbell-less. 🙁 I mean, how cool are these?!
Oh, and I lied. Two things I regret…the other is not wearing sunblock. Wear sunblock, people! Even at 9,000 feet!
I will say that I have grown to love the hiking culture. The people that do it as a pastime have their trekking poles, hiking pants and shoes, killer calves, and a congenial demeanor (and by now I can tell where someone is from just by the hiking gear they have on). They are normally earth-concious and share this camaraderie with one another that is really palpable. There is something so uplifting about passing hikers and hearing “hello” in 20 different languages. Everyone just loves nature and it almost seems like all culture barriers fall down. They realize that sometimes the best entertainment, therapy and energy is just found outside in God’s creation. I get that 100%. It never ever gets old.
Off to bed. This hiker is tired.
Leave A Reply
Wow! Just wow! The mountains, the glacier, the clear water, the flowers, the church – just amazing! All of it. Switzerland is now going VERY high up on my bucket list!
It totally should! It is amazing, Jenny!