Hotel Bristol Zermatt

I am only stayin the night just to see the Matterhorn. The sun is out and I took a hike up nearby hill. It was about an hour and a half uphill walk with regular short stops to catch my breath. I think I have had enough of hiking now, I did 4 hours of it at Montreux as well, I must have the best **** at the moment. Spectacular view of the mountain at the hilltop though. It's less of a mountain and more of a giant pinnacle of rock. It looks menacing, to prove it there is a nearby graveyard full ...

... we had to stop to catch our breath every few minutes. It was horrible!

After about 15 minutes I was starting to wonder if we were going the right way seeing as I hadn’t seen anyone else head up this hill and had only seen a couple of people come down it. It also seemed to be heading in the opposite direction to where I thought we should be going. We could see some direction signs further up so we decided to keep plugging on rather than risk going back down 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 out ...

... 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 ...

... way up to meet Evie and Sue at the playground (after a 5 euro hot chocolate) and we all walked down through some delightful traditional Swiss towns.

                                                 

Sue and Tom decided late in the afternoon to take advantage of the Tram/Gondola/Train infrastructure of Zermatt and spring for a 4 day "unlimited rides" pass. We took advantage by taking the ...

... to the border of France and Italy. Left aligned photo tag: The village at the for of the Matterhorn is called "Zermatt". You can't come to Switzerland and NOT see the Matterhorn.

... could see was snow. Unfortunately, I now have a pretty bad sunburned face as when I was up there the sun was reflecting off the snow, and I didn't feel it at all until it was too late. I want to say I look like a Panda but I guess an inverted Panda is more specific as I'm completely white where my sunglasses were. I guess it's a sort of metaphor for the bad point about travelling by yourself - no-one's necessarily going to be around to tell you when ...

... that it was so high but I should have figured with glaciers and all. Sometimes I just don;t put 2 and 2 together. The temperatures are mild- no winds, no storms just gorgeous blue skies. I better wear a bit more sunscreen tomorrow or my face may end up looking suspiciously raccoon-like by the end of the week. I've attached some photos from today. We're having a great time and I feel extremely relaxed (and exhausted!) Lots of love, Serena