After living in Switzerland for 6 years, I had still not seen the iconic Matterhorn peak – and nor, I may add, had my husband, though he was born here. But when friends visited this summer from North America, they wanted to go to the big M, and so we decided to come along.
It’s not an easy spot to get to, one reason why we’d never made the pilgrimage. The last town in the Mattertal, Zermatt, is not accessible by car; you have to park and take a shuttle, then a cog railway to the best viewing spot. From our house, we drove about three hours into the Valais, where we rented a place lower down the valley for a few nights (staying in Zermatt proving very pricey). At first the weather was not at all good for visiting the higher peaks, which were buried in clouds. So we spent one day around the town of Grächen, a pleasant alpine spot.
Fortunately, the next day the clouds cleared and we headed upwards. It took almost 2 hours by car, shuttle, and train, but at last we made it to the top – Gornergrat is the end of the line. Climbers can go higher, but we were just there to look around.
Overall, this area was not exactly our style, though I was glad to see it once — an impressive, but bleak landscape, with a strange overlay of commercial tourist attractions: restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops, etc. The Matterhorn is striking because of its shape and the way it stands alone from some of the surrounding peaks.
We had lunch and photo ops on the Gornergrat viewing platform, finishing up with munching some Toblerone. Then we walked down to the Riffelsee, a lake which in many dramatic photographs of the mountain looks much bigger than it did to me on this occasion. The weather lately had been dry, so maybe at other times it has more water.
When taking my own photo I framed my shot to make the lake look pristine and deserted, though it wasn’t at all — the hordes of chattering tourists with their cameras were here too!
On our way home, we stopped in Saas-Fee, a more comfortable kind of area I could imagine visiting again. There were lots of lovely hikes around here, too, without being quite such an exhausting journey.
Still, it was certainly a unique and memorable trip, and I’m glad we did it. If you came to Switzerland, what would you most want to see? Would you make the effort to see the Matterhorn?
First of all, what lovely photos, Lory, they certainly gave this armchair traveller a sense of the views and the mountains, especially their majesty. I must admit Switzerland is one of the West European countries I’ve yet to see up close
Would I want to visit or at least view the Matterhorn? Yes, I suppose I would, in the same way that I treasure memories of seeing other iconic peaks – Snowdon in Wales’s Eryri National Park, Mt Rainier (admittedly from a plane), Mt Blanc (after walking up 1400 metres to a glacier), and Hong Kong’s The Peak (before I was ten). I probably won’t be going skiing ever again but there’s something special about the crystal clear air and peaks disappearing into the distance that I particularly valued.
And of course one of the reasons we chose to live in the Bannau Brycheiniog/ Brecon Beacons was to enjoy views of familiar summits in the Black Mountains, and occasionally to walk up them.
It could be special to add the big M to your collection. If I were going to go again, I think I would try in spring – fewer tourists and more wildflowers. However, there are other spots in the Alps that have been more to my taste. Always a pleasure to share my photos whenever I get to travel. 🙂
Oops, I had never made the connection between the Toblerone chocolate shape and the Matterhorn!!
They’re pretty similar!
Hello Lory, your photos are lovely! Especially the one of the Matterhorn over the lake – Well done on missing all the tourists. If I ever have the chance to visit Switzerland I would be tempted to go because I love mountains and lakes (here in the UK, North Wales and the Lake District are some of my favourite places ever), but I would probably have to go when it was quieter!
Blessings, Jessica 💌
I wished afterward I had taken a picture of the crowd, just for contrast! I hope you will get the chance to visit Switzerland. It’s a wonderful place.
Seeing the Matterhorn would be on my bucket list for Switzerland too. Glad you finally got to do it! I smiled at the photo with just you. We went to some iconic spots in California this spring, and it was difficult to get a photo of anything without hordes of people in the background. 🙂 Well done!
There was a lot of space around the tourist spots, at least! Hope you can get to Switzerland some day. 🙂
Thank you for sharing all your photos! The one you framed of the Matterhorn with the Riffelsee in front is lovely in spite of the footprints. I doubt I will ever get to Switzerland, but if I do, I’d probably want to see the area around Maienfeld, where the Heidi books are set, because I grew up loving the first book. Maybe the Matterhorn, too, and maybe Lake Geneva. Honestly, though I’d probably most enjoy whatever villages in the Alps I could find that are a little quieter, more off the major tourist routes.
I can certainly recommend that. “Heidiland” is very touristy now too, but there are quiet retreats to be found.