We woke to perfect weather and our plan was to head to the see the Matterhorn. It was a 3.5hr drive each way, but it looked amazing in photos and I hoped it lived up to the awesomeness of the ride at the Royal Show of the same name I enjoyed 25 years ago. God I’m old.
The drive there was, umm, interesting to say the least! So many close calls due to the extreme nature of the roads which looked one way at best as we criss-crossed our way through a huge valley and climbed and climbed. Amazing terrain, amazing roads.
After a long time on the road, we reached a town just short of Zermatt, a ski-town at the base of the Matterhorn. Zermatt is car/motorbike free so you have to leave your car and then get a train/van up. Once we reached Zermatt, we met up with Wade & Rhi who have been on the road all year and being good friends of Biddy & John, they’d driven from Spain over the past 2 days to meet up.
Was great to hear their travel stories over lunch and after, we made our way up to Gornergrat, an observation deck 3100m above sea level. Since Zermatt is 1400m, the climb up is steep to say the least so it’s a cog-train much like a roller-coaster. The trip takes about 20 minutes and goes from green, to snow covered trees, to just snow.
The top had a huge observation area of the surrounding area including the super impressive Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in all of Europe and borders Italy & Switzerland. It’s considered the Mountain of Mountains in the Alps so it was pretty cool to be able to see it up (relatively) close.
The drive back was even more challenging given it was pitch black, but we got home safe & sound and we now had 2 more card players join us in Rhi & Wade. A top night of drinking and cards were had all round!
