Christiania Zermatt

... another according to the train website the day before, but apparently not everything you see online is true. I had to make a transfer, but luckily, it turned out well. The ride into Brescia was stressful, the ticket man (I don't know his official title) was coming around to check our tickets but the man in the seat next to me didn't have his. A little argument commenced, then some all out shouting, and fingers being pointed and scary looks in angry eyes. I was a ...

... the casualties of the Matterhorn.<br>Zermatt itself is tiny, with only electric taxis. It is much colder than Lauterbrunnen even though it's on the border of Italy.<br>Switzerland is strange. It has no language of its own. In Bern, Lauterbrunnen and Zermatt they speak German but in Montreux they speak French, even the train announcements change languages. It gets confusing, so I just stick to greeting people in English most of the time. When I had arrived here I was fuming a bit because I ...

... our downhill journey we found ourselves on a path that would have been just as steep as our first path, only this time we were only going down it. Or so we hoped. We had just followed our noses to get there so I was dreading that we might discover at the bottom that we had gone the wrong way and would have to retrace our steps all the way back up!<br><br>We breathed a sigh of relief at the bottom when we found the sign pointing downhill to Zermatt. There were also signs ...

... So I was keeping an eye open for a policeman, and spotted a whole police station( or should I say Carabinieri)!! There must be one in there, we thought. And it's definitely worth stopping. We got a place to park (probably not very legal, but we were following the Italian rules of the road by now), grabbed our Landy Rally T shirts, and went on the hunt for points. It lookead bit locked up, but as we poked around the gate, a couple of people came ...

We woke "late" (8am) and were the last to leave our bunk. Skipping breakfast, we began our 5 hour journey back to Zermatt. We chose a route that would give us a different view of the valley, but involved 1800m of decent. We paid for it for the next few days. We arrived at our apartment and ...

... a brief orientation walk of Zermatt after breakfast. We had a spectacular view of the Matterhorn with no clouds at all. From Gornergrat, we had stunning views of the Matterhorn (by then cloud covered) and the surrounding mountains, including Monte Rosa, the highest peak in Switzerland. (That is also the name of the hotel where Whymper started his ill-fated journey). We took the train back down and immediately walked to the funicular for a trip to Sunnegga Paradise. From here ...

... 1 hour later we were in Zermatt. What the lady didn't say, was that it would then take another 30 minutes to walk to the other end of town to catch the cable car! But all that was forgotten once we were on our way. The cable car took us from Zermatt to Furi, then a gondola from Furi to Trockener Steg, and finally, another gondola from there up to Klein Matterhorn (glacier paradise). It ...

... end up looking. When I ended my journal last time, I went out with Mike an Nicole to a brick oven pizza restaurant run by a family from Napoli. It is easy to get good Italian food in Zermatt due to its proximity to Italy. There were no seats in the restaurant, so it was necessary to sit at the bar, which was fine with me, as we could see the chef making the pizzas in front of us.

... painfully. (For those of you who don't know, Costochronditis is an inflamation of the cartliage of the rib cage. It is VERY painful. Couple that with heart pulpitations and you can imagine my predicament.) I think I would have enjoyed the amazing views more if I wasn't struggling with pain/trouble breathing. All in all, I think the pain was worth the sights. One good note about train rides in Switzerland are the food carts that travel the length of the train while you are ...

www.elodie50a.com<br><br>Here is a video (sorry for the very bad quality)<br>http://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=R5_9hODsqgs<br><br><br>