Alpenroyal Swiss Q Hotel Zermatt

... 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.

... town of Zermatt and its Matterhorn views.

Zermatt is a very small town of only 5000 people with no petrol fueled vehicles at all. They have little electric taxis and horse drawn carriages to take people around. Very cute.

We made our way to our hotel which was unfortunately up a small hill. This would have been ok except for we took a couple of wrong turns and our backpacks were getting heavy!

The receptionist was a lovely guy and explained that the ...

... off a cliff, but it made an enornous roar and was really cool to see and hear. Walking uphill in the snow was hard work but it was so much fun running and sliding down. We went up the Sphinx lookout and chatted to fellow Aussies while taking (hopefully) excellent pics. The Ice Palace was great too, with lots of ice sculptures. We came back to Lauterbrunnen on the last train of the day, complete with a very large cow bell that I think will get my classes attention :-)

We had packed up the Landy by about 8 a.m., and were ready to plan the route to Val d'Isere. With no roadbook to follow, the GPS was put into use, and a quick check against the maps verified that the best route was probably down towards Milan to join the motorway, and take motorways towards Aosta.

So, not much in the way of navigating to be done, except to check the road signs now and again, so the hunt for bingo photos was driven hard today ...

... took Evie back up via the Tram to the top of the Klein Matterhorn just before the last ride at 4:30p. Along the way, they watched a parade of swiss dancers with typical accordian players as they paraded down main street as part of an annual traditional festival.
 
                 

... on the snow with a lovely view from Mont Blanc on one side and the Italian plains on the other. In between there were dozens of skiers and snowboarders enjoying some summer runs. After our snow hike, we took a Tram down to do a 10K hike to Hornlihut, starting at 2500m. Tom was suitably freaked out by the ...

On Friday, we continued to "get the most" from our unlimited passes by taking the kids up to 3100m and the top of the Rothorn. Our journey took us up a Cog Railway (entirely inside a tunnel) to a Gondola. From ...

... we go to the restaurant for diner and a happy hour beer. It was a very good meal and lots to eat!

We took hot water bottles to bed with us, it wasn't too cold inside.

Traffic lights in Switzerland and Germany are before the intersection, not after it as in Canada and the US. This makes it impossible to creep forward into the intersection as you will not be able to see when the light changes to green.

... but quite different from everywhere else I'd stayed so far. This wasn't a bad thing as it felt very safe, there was no bar, lots of families and people of all ages. Also I couldn't believe straight out of my dorm window I could see the Matterhorn, boom it was right there infront of me, unbelievable. Dinner was included aswell which was handy. My first day in Zermatt was a bit weird really because it was so different from everywhere else I'd been on ...

... Locarno but it was bigger and busier than expected so we kept driving to Ascona which is on Lake Maggiore. Well we were much happier to be in Switzerland as the roads improve straight away and the people are calmer. What we thought would just be a small little town turned out to be a very richie rich resort town... Wayne spent the entire time drooling and yelling out "I want one" as a heap of Ferraris, Porches, Lamborghinis and Massaratis drove past us!! We found a great spot on Lake Maggiore and tried to unwind from our hair rising drive!!