Alpenhof Zermatt

... control recently has broken down, this was the perfect sign to follow, where I planed to cross the border to Switzerland.<br><br>Just arrived in late afternoon to Aosta, I was not only already entered to the italian part of the alps but also to the point of good bye. Here I decided not to spend another night in Italy and crossed the border to my homecountry Switzerland a hour later at Calle del Gran San Bernardo. <br><br>BIENVENUE EN SUISSE - WELCOME TO SWITZERLAND

... used my final day of my eurrail pass for this trip only to find that the trip from Visp station to the Zermatt was not valid despite being told by two train operators that it was. I also couldn't get through to the girl at the station that my eurrail pass allows me discounts for the train but she kept telling me, 'no, no, you can't use anymore days it's full'. Today wasn't the first time I have been stuffed around by the Swiss. It's hard to believe that Einstein was educated here.<br><br><br>

... but our legs struggled to keep us upright on the steep slope. I know uphill is harder but my legs were shaking 10 minutes in!<br><br>At the bottom we saw that there were two signs pointing to the spot we needed to be, obviously one was right and one was wrong! The right one had a very level path that we welcomed with relief!<br><br>We walked for about 2 hours before lunch, viewing the Matterhorn from different angles and stopping at lakes and streams to fill our water ...

... mountain through Wengen and then into the tunnel that goes straight through the Eiger, arriving at the highest railway station in Europe. So amazing. No cloud, perfect weather and, even better, more things to see than 3 years ago! There is now a track to walk on along the glacier... turns out it goes to a hut that is 200 metres higher than the Jungfrau stop... we didnt make it all the way to the hut but we saw an avalanche! Well, maybe not an avalanche, more some snow cracked and ...

... 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 ...

... garage. I ask if we could sleep in our car overnight if it is parked here and the guy says yes, like he really doesn't care. It is a lot warmer and dryer here so Len goes back to the campground to see if we can get our money back and move over here out of the rain. The man had already gone so we are stuck there as adding the parking fee onto the camping fee it would have been quite expensive.<br><br>It is now 6 pm ...

... As soon as I boarded however I knew I couldn't possibly get away with this leg for free (well just with my Interrail) as there were massive panoramic windows and it was generally pretty cushty. So it was no surprise when the bloke came round, took my rail pass, started shaking his head in dismay saying "this is.....no good". I put on my innocent face but was quite worried he might make an example out of me and give me a hefty fine, but luckily he ...

... looking at food!!). The rest of the afternoon was spent driving and this was an absolute nightmare... bad Italian mountain side roads that barely fit two normal size cars, bad impatient and rude Italian drivers and to top it off it was peak hour. Well we nearly had several accidents, told several Italian's who abused us to go and get *#^%%$ and got stuck in a tunnel where no one would stop to let us though... Wayne nearly took off the awning and then nearly reversed into some ones car ...

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>