Zermatt/Sion, Switzerland

August 3, 2007

As it poured rain outside we packed our things to check out of our Lauterbrunnen apartment. As usual with our vacations, it rains only when it is more or less convenient, so we can’t complain. Lauterbrunnen was great, as were the surrounding areas that we visited in the Bernese Oberlands of Switzerland. We drove back to the town of Kandersteg, the small little village that we visited yesterday and is a relatively popular jump off point for some beautiful alpine hikes. As Heather mentioned, it was probably more crowded than normal as we ran into the many groups of boyscouts who were celebrating the 100th anniversary of scouting. I remember celebrating the Diamond Jubilee (75th anniversary) when I was a Boy Scout, which makes me feel old again. Anyway, we came back here to board the tunnel train that took us through the mountain to the southern part of Switzerland and saved us a couple of hours not having to drive around the mountain. It was fun to be in the pitch black for a bit, knowing we were inside the mountain. Once we drove our car off the train, we continued south to Tasch. This was the closest city to Zermatt (no cars!) that we could drive to, so we boarded a train (pedestrian this time) for the ten minute journey to Zermatt. Although it had been raining/drizzling for most of the morning, by this time it had at least stopped raining, although it was still a little overcast. Zermatt is a beautiful alpine town with the view/access to the Matterhorn. It has long been a car free zone to prevent pollution from damaging the view of the Matterhorn any more than nature does on its own. Only electric maintenance cars are allowed, except in May, when it is “construction month”, when trucks lumber through (fortunately it was not May!). We walked through the village, enjoying the stroll and taking in the mountain view and window shopping. Once we came close enough to the view to the Matterhorn it had cleared up a little bit more, allowing us to see the Matterhorn in the distance, although not in its entirety. We decided it wasn’t worth the $100 or so to take the cable car up closer considering the overcast and lack of visibility we would have. There was a cemetery behind the church in the village with the gravestones of many of the climbers that died trying to scale this mammoth structure, some as young as 17 years old.
We took the train back to Tasch and drove to Sion, Switzerland where we spent the night.