The Magical Adventures of Jennifer and Steve: The Highest I've Ever Been in My Life

Today...Zermatt. We wanted to make sure we saw some good mountains in Switzerland and Jennifer's Aunt Lana and Uncle Leo lived there for a bit, so Zermatt it was. To start the morning, we couldn't find hot water at our hotel for our tea, so we decided to get some at the train station. It cost us CHF3.30 for enough hot water to make an expresso!!! Ouch. Live and learn. Got to the station a little early. A train stopped in front of us and we got on. We realized it was too early for our train (5 minutes early) and got off. Good thing, or else we would have ended up in Venice.

Train to Zermatt was on schedule - walked through "downtown" Zermatt which puts Whistler to shame. Lots of shopping, lots of people. Lots of Nordic poles everywhere (jealous!). People here do every type of activity from hiking to biking to skiing to paragliding. There's not too many places where you can finish skiing in the morning and 45 minutes later be out on your bike. We rode the highest lift in Europe all the way to Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (3,883m or 12,736 ft).

You have to take a total of 3 lifts to get to the top. The first one from Zermatt up to Furi (1867m). It’s small, seats about 6 people, but is fast. The second takes you to Troekener Steg (2939m). It is big, capacity for up to 125 people. The final one takes you to Zermatt Glacier Palace with the viewing platform. In total, it took ~45 minutes to get up to the top. There are various lifts to different parts of the mountain range that are interconnected. You could spend more than a day riding them all.

You could really notice the difference in oxygen levels at the top. We were light headed at times. The temperature was around 10C, but plenty warm in the sun. After a short jaunt in the snow and some views from the observation tower, we headed back down to Troekener Steg to have a marvelous French lunch while contemplating the view of the Matterhorn. Because it was not the top level there was only about 10 people who stuck around, so it was serene. We then came back down to Zermatt and walked around the old part of town admiring the original Swiss chalets! The chalets all have beautiful slate roofs. Steve was tired of carrying my stuff, so insisted we go shopping for a larger backpack (or as Noah likes to call it "pack pack"). We got one and now has Steve has pack pack envy.

Train back to Montreux. We were tired after all that mountain air, but still had one thing to do today…fondue. We went to a local restaurant called Caveau des Vignerons, that specializes in regional dishes. We had a fondue prix fixe menu that started with meat and pickle plate. Next was fondue moitie-moitie (half-half). The fondue was half Gruyere cheese and half Vacheron cheese. Final course was meringues baked with Gruyere. The were topped at the table with a whipped double cream (that contained absolutely no fat – NOT). Sorry no pics of the food. I forgot to take the camera. But don’t worry, they have another speciality called “sur ardoise” that we want to try, so we’ll be back.