Glacier Express - Zermatt

Ok, back to our Swiss adventures and I will try to wrap up our fabulous Glacier Express trip from last August (yes I know I know... Ages ago...) Now I have to warn you this post will have a bazzilion photos... About 50. I couldn't cut it down any more. I have hundreds of photos from this trip and they are just gorgeous!

We spent day 3 and 4 of the trip in Zermatt, probably the most famous small town in all of Switzerland. I know for a fact that each and every one of you out there has seen the most famous sight of Zermatt, the mountain peak called Matterhorn. How do I know that? Well, unless you live under a rock, you must have seen a Toblerone bar (some may have even seen other Swiss candy) and the Matterhorn is proudly featured right on the wrapper... Here it is... You will see the real thing soon.

We arrived in Zermatt around 5:30 and headed to our hotel straight from the train station. We walked from the station to our hotel! The town is tiny and the town center where our place was located was literally minutes away! Have I mentioned that our tour company did and AWESOME job arranging everything for us? Highly recommended!

As soon as we walked into our room we realized we had the million dollar view right from our balcony - we were facing the Matterhorn directly bang on. So cool!

After we got settled we went out to explore the town a little bit and to look for a nice place to have dinner.

We were hoping that we'd get lucky like the night before and that Katherine would fall asleep in the stroller and we would be have some quiet time to eat. Yah no such luck this time. She was tired and maybe a little hungry and she just kept screaming and screaming as we hurriedly gobbled up our delicious food. We rushed back to the hotel to put her down, and in the end we ended up going to bed pretty early too.

 Miss Priss so happy to be carted around in her fancy stroller...

 Here is the yummy food we had to gobble up as fast as we could...

The next morning, after breakfast, we headed to the main station of the Gornergrat Rail, which is the famous cog wheel rail system that takes people way, way high up the mountains, through all the pretty little villages to almost the top of the glacier. I will not waste time explaining the geography since it really does not matter. Instead I will let the pictures do the talking.... We got off at the top and decided to hike down to about a third of the way down. After we took about a million pictures that is...

 About 10 minutes into the ride...

Along the way we had to stop to change and feed the Munchkin. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that she was in the baby Bjorn the whole time? Too cool. She is such a good traveller baby! We have fed her and changed her in some crazy extreme conditions.... Anyways, we kept going down.

All along the way we were being passed by groups of crazy people on mountain bikes coming down the mountain. I say crazy, because the terrain was super steep and rocky, full of crazy twists and dangerous drop offs. Nothing I would ever want to experience on a bike.... We had a great time! It was the quintessential Swiss outdoorsy day. The views were stunning, the weather gorgeous, Munchkin slept most of the way. Fun! After an hour and a half of hiking we reached the station and had lunch and Katherine stretched out her little bones and posed for some cool pictures.

After a while we headed back down on the little cog wheel train and spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around town.

 Silly daddy....

We found this really cool ancient part of town while walking around. This all dates to like 16 or 17 hundreds. Amazing.

Once again here is the view from our hotel room window. Wow!!

By the time it was Katherine's bedtime we were actually pretty wiped out, so again we went to bed early. I have to say, we've been doing that a lot since we had her... Oh well... You need a lot of energy to keep up with a little one.

The next day we again got ready and headed to explore.

Just outside of Zermatt, there is a really cool spot with a river tumbling through a deep deep gorge, with skinny wooden walkways attached to the sides of the rock where you can walk around, get splashed with the water and admire the views. Of course we had to go see it.

 Munchkin slept a good portion of the day.

 Pretty views on the hike...

 

 Wild Swiss squirrel...

Afterwards, we took the long and windy way back to the hotel, actually, we almost got lost in the fields, but since all roads lead to Zermatt we finally found our way back.

We had a quick lunch in town and headed to the train station to catch our train back home.

Now the ride back was something else. It started horrible - at least in my opinion. I would have never thought that it would be quite THAT hot in the mountains but it was!! It was unbearably hot. I was super uncomfortable but more importantly I was worried about Katherine! AC in Europe is not really popular, and while it makes living conditions tough, there is probably nothing worse than being on a super crowded, super hot train with no AC and a little baby! I was soo scared that she would have a heat stroke! We had her stripped down to her diaper at one point but she didn't really like it and kept crying and all. So when we got off the regional train to change to the big inter city train that was taking us to Geneva we decided to spend the extra money and upgrade our tickets to 1st class where ac was guaranteed.

Well so we get into the 1st class car and..... IT IS AS HOT AS HELL!!!! No ac whatsoever!!! I was starting to have a meltdown, when CJ sent me to investigated the other 1st class car behind us. Luckily it turned out to be pleasant and cool so we quickly switched and spent the rest of the trip taking turns rocking the poor exhausted Katherine and trying to get her to take a nap. I have to say, I will never in my life forget how uncomfortable and hot it was that day And around that time in general in Geneva. Never want to live in a place with no ac ever again... Anywho...

We reached Geneva around 6pm and soon we were in our apartment which luckily we left with the shutters closed so though not air conditioned, it was slightly cooler than outside

All in all this trip was amazing and an experience of a lifetime! When we first moved there I really wanted to take this trip both in the summer and in the winter. It is truly a unique experience to see the route in different seasons. In the end we were only able to do the summer tour, but still this was something amazing that we will never forget for as long as we live.