The thing about the mountains is that no weather forecast ever gets it
right. We had three days planned in Zermatt, and once we checked the
weather on my phone while on the train ride from Tasch, we saw nothing
but little cloud and snow icons for the entirety of the trip. We
started to fear that we wouldn’t get to see the Matterhorn during our
stay.
It felt that way when we arrived Thursday evening; it was grey, cold,
and wet. We checked into our hotel (Hotel Pollux), took a hot shower,
and enjoyed dinner before calling it an early night.
Since the forecast called for another grey day, we decided to sleep in
and have a late breakfast (as in 30min before they stopped serving it,
late haha). However, we were surprised to see sunlight hitting the
tables through the window. Because of that, we ate quickly, went back
to our room, grabbed our cameras, and set out to explore. Even though
there were clouds, they moved fast, and little by little blue started
to take over the sky. Our first stop was a classic lookout of the town
with the Matterhorn in the background. When we arrived, we still
couldn’t see the peak, but we sat down on some steps and enjoyed the
good weather. Eventually, the mountain appeared and we were ready to
photograph it.
After shooting every angle we could think of, we went back to town and
had lunch at our hotel’s restaurant. I had the Raclette d’ Revision
(which meant I had endless repeats). I tapped out after three haha.
Yummy and perfect to battle the cold weather.
Given the change in fortune regarding the forecast, we decided to take
the train (the Gornergrat Railway) up to Rotenboden, the second to
last stop with a great view of the Matterhorn. Normally this is where
you would stop to see it with the Rifflesee lake at your feet, but
unfortunately it was frozen and hidden under snow. Regardless, it was
the perfect place to catch the sunset. There was no one else around,
it was eerily quiet, except for our steps crunching the snow, and we
just laughed as the colors hit the clouds, because this was totally
unexpected.
We stayed until we were frozen, and then took the train back to town.
After showering and enjoying dinner, we went back to our room and
started to look at the photos we had taken during the day before
falling asleep.
The next day we decided to wake up early and be ready in case there
were good conditions again. Lo and behold, it was a perfect day. We
took the train up to Gornergrat (the last stop) to have lunch with the
Matterhorn in the background. Because the day was so nice, we brought
our laptops up and worked at the cafe there until we were ready to go
down to Rotenboden to take some more photos at sunset.
The last day was a different kind of adventure! We checked out of our
hotel after breakfast, and set up shop at a coffeeshop for a few
hours. We were going to spend the night at Iglu-dorf, which is an Igloo
hotel, and check-in wasn’t until later. Around 4pm we took the train
up to Rotenboden and began the 15min hike down to Igludorf. The rest
of the group staying that night wasn’t going to arrive until 6pm, so
we took photos there while we waited. After being given a cup of hot
wine or cider, we dropped our backpacks in our room (the Seahorse
room) and then went to have dinner. We had an apero of cheese, nuts,
and bread accompanied by champagne, some soup, and for the main
course, fondue. Soon after we changed into our bathing suits and
enjoyed our solo time in the hot tub. It was amazing and incredibly
relaxing. It was -2C outside, but the hot tub kept us plenty warm.
We then changed into our pjs (aka thermal base layers), left our wet
clothes in the warm room, and then slipped into our sleeping bags,
watched a couple episodes on Netflix and went to sleep. Even though we
slept at such frigid temperatures, we slept quite well! We were woken
up in the morning with some hot tea and then as a group we hiked down
to the Riffelberg stop to have breakfast in the hotel.
That capped our Switzerland trip! After taking the train back down to
Zermatt, we then took the train to Tasch, packed up our car and drove
back to Zurich to catch a bus out of the country. All in all, it was
an amazing long-weekend filled with good weather, epic views, and
delicious food.
