Zermatt

After the festival on Saturday André and I drove to Zermatt. 230km took four hours of driving along very very windy roads snaking up mountains and down the other side. We only drove an average speed of 50km/hr and went through 40 tunnels! Yep, exactly 40, I counted them. There are some photos of the mountain where you can see the winding road.

At one stage it got very misty and we could hardly see anything in front of us. At that time it was only 3.5 C outside.

Quite tired after the long drive, but excited to have finally arrived, we parked the car in Täsch, the town before Zermatt and took the train in to Zermatt. Zermatt is a car free town so you can't drive there.

We arrived in Zermatt and walked down Bahnhoffstrasse which is a beautiful welcome into this little town. It wasn't far to our hotel. There are little electric cars, like golf cars which you can use as a taxi, but we enjoyed the walk and stretching our legs.

At the hotel we received a welcome drink and then went up to our cosy room. Look at the wood carvings at the entrance to our room and on the ceiling.

For dinner on Saturday night we went to a steak house where we had some really good steak. It was done on an open fire in the restaurant, right next to our table actually. Then the chef brings it to your table and slices half of it and serves it with your veggies and rösti. I was very worried about where he took the rest of my steak. He explained that when we're done he "makes another plate". In the video you can see my second plate.

Of course you'll see many photos of the Matterhorn in the video.

We saw two men playing their alpine horns. It was the first time I heard what this sounds like. Really nice.

The old part of the town is crammed with tumbledown wooden houses. The wooden storage barns are built on stilts balanced on stone discs to keep out rodents. Interesting. I've never seen something like this before.

On Sunday we went for a short walk. Well we tried, but we had an afternoon nap before going for the hike so I didn't have much energy and for some reason I'm not all that much into hiking anymore. That's sad for André, I do try from time to time to scrape some energy together to go on a short and easy hike with him. But it didn't work this time and we turned around to go have drinks and a snack at a pub in town.

On Sunday night we had our first fondue in Switzerland! I really wanted to try a cheese fondue since I've never had that, but the restaurant didn't do that so we had the oil fondue with meat and 16 little bowls with dips and fruit and veg to snack on while your meat is frying. We were totally stuffed after that!!! We really ate well this weekend. The hotel breakfasts were of course a feast too. I love hotel breakfasts!

We were very lucky to have great weather. Clear, so we can see the Matterhorn, and sunny and not cold. Only in the evenings it got a bit colder and I was wearing my winter jacket, so I can imagine it must be freezing in winter!

If you haven't noticed already, you will see from the pictures that I love all the wooden buildings with the flowers on the balconies.

Enjoy the video! (As usual, if you have problems viewing the video, see it here on vimeo.)

Zermatt, Switzerland from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.