Sunday 17th August: Brisbane to Geneva 17th August, Geneva to Zermatt 18th August
Brisbane to Zermatt: Flight Departed 12.45pm, Train arrived Zermatt 5.13pm:
Accommodation: Hotel Dufour Traditionell Zermatt
Zermatt checking out puffer coats
Zermatt is buzzing with tourists
Matterhorn backdrop to Zermatt
Hotel Dufour Traditionell
Matterhorn in all it’s glory
We departed Brisbane at 12.45pm Sunday 17th August with Etihad to Singapore, then with Air France to Paris before connecting to Geneva. We like Air France as their times suit with minimum disruption, arriving in Paris at 8am. Their business class seats do lay down to an angled flat bed - great for lifting your feet off the floor but not good when you continually slide down feet first. We're delayed in Paris an hour - someone was a "no show" and the crew needed to remove their baggage for security reasons.
We arrived in Geneva to a 20°C warm day, stressing when our blue and white stripey Chinese laundry bags containing our back packs failed to turn up. We don't have a Plan B, so we're relieved when they're the last to roll off the conveyor belt an hour later. There's no customs and it's just a few hundred metres to the adjoining train station where we buy tickets for the 1.23pm to Zermatt - $AUD238 - train travel in Switzerland is very expensive.
After 3 hours, we change in Visp to the Glacier Express - it was this train that crashed just a few days earlier near St Moritz near its starting point. 10 minutes later the train cogs latch on to the track and we're heading steeply uphill. 30 minutes later we enter the Mattertal - the valley of Zermatt - a narrow gully with steeply sided mountains on both sidse. We keep an eye out for the Europaweg, the pathway we'll be taking tomorrow high in the mountains.
Finally our cog train arrives in Zermatt at 5.13pm to a magnificent backdrop of the snow capped Matterhorn. At last, after a 32 hour plane/train trip from Brisbane, we’re at the start of our hiking adventure. Zermatt is a no-car town except for the electric service cars that hoot around the streets. It’s buzzing with tourists and almost a carnival atmosphere. The weather is much warmer and drier than the weather reports of last week had predicted.
The tourist office is of no help in assessing the state of the Euroweg, a recently manmade high walking path along the eastern mountain face and notoriously famous for rockslides and washed away suspension bridges. She tells me what I already know that the main suspension bridge is out but that the rest of the track between the Europahut and Grachen, our walk in 2 days time, is ok.
First stop is the Galcier Intersport a sports shop which I'd earmarked as having isobutane gas bottles for our coffee making burner. None. But a little further up the street we're in luck. 2 Please. One to take and one to leave for when we return for the next part of the walk. The Hotel Dufour Traditionell is about 600 metres further on and easy to find. Thank you booking.com. There's unbelievable views of the Matterhorn at every turn of the way.
Unpacking, repacking, sorting and double checking our stuff - we'll be leaving some spare tea, coffee, soap and maps behind and to collect when we return in 10 days. A quick shower than its off for a beer. Th restaurants a chock-a block so we do the unthinkable and eat at McDonnalds - there's no one there. Clearly it's not the place to be "seen". But we only feel like a light meal and not a full blown Swiss restaurant 6 course dinner so it suits us. And it's warm. The night air is now cold and the puffer jackets - Parachute like material with and inner lining of super light and thin down. Home to bed and an early night.