Friday, I woke up at 8am and headed to the Edinburgh Airport. From there I had a 2-hour flight to Geneva, Switzerland (the French part), and from there a train to Lousanne, switched to a train to Visp, and on to a train to Zermatt. The town our hotel was in was about a 15 minute train ride from Zermatt, in a cute little town called Randa. I finally got to the hotel at 9pm Friday night, and Raisa was already in the room. It was a cute room with a beautiful balcony and view.
Our bathroom, with a toilet and sink and a shower head just in the middle of the bathroom..causing a very flooded bathroom after every shower.
We headed down to the hotel restaurant for a delicious dinner of toast with prociutto (I'm a great vegetarian, salad, penne pasta with eggplant, and sangria with fresh fruit. We went to bed early for a full day Saturday!
Saturday we got up early, enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and hopped on the train to Zermatt. We explored the city for the day, took the gondola all the way up to the top of the mountain. At the very very top, you could either go over to the Italy side of the mountain and take black diamond trails all the way down (yikes!) or go to the Glacier Palace, as we did. It was this whole place carved in a glacier with ice statues and a slice and all different information. It was very cool.
The view from lunch
We then went to the Matterhorn Museum, which was very odd. It sort of described the first climbing of the Matterhorn Mountain (aka the mountain on the Toblerone box), and the fatalities that happened. Except there were strange exhibits, with miniature sheep, scary looking dolls, and a color-changing/post card/light show on a mountain. Odd.
Afterwards, we got dinner at a little restaurant called The Pipe. I had a delicious chicken burrito with jalepenos, and then Raisa and I shared chocolate banana cake and homemade caramel vodka. MMM!
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early again...for SKIING! We had breakfast at the hotel again, and headed back to Zermatt to rent our skis and hit the slopes. We did a half-day, skiing from noon and not finishing until almost 6! We started out slow, on the blue trails (the lowest), getting the feel for things. After doing the same slope a few times and mastering it, we decided to move up a level and challenge ourselves. That was...an adventure. It had the most amazing views, yet was a rather narrow trail, on the edge of a mountain cliff, with a mix between steep hills and complete flatness. It was exhausting. The trail took us almost 2 1/2 hours to finally get back down to the gondolas. Today I can honestly say my entire body hurts, after a few falls, twisted knees, ankles, and some bumps here and there...but I think over the course of the day Raisa and I became much better skiers!
We had dinner again a the Pipe, where I had a super yummy falafel wrap with goat cheese. Then we went to the market and bought a variety of swiss cheeses and wine, and brought it home to snack on.
Today, we got up at 7am to head back out on the train, plane, and bus trek home. I finally got home around 6:30, exhausted, and wanting to turn around and go back immediately. It was by far the most magical place I had ever been in my whole entire life, worth the long travel and all that came along with it! If you ever get the chance to go - GO!
If you'd like to view the rest of the pictures, they are available on my FB! Or click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=1357332408450&id=1085670017&aid=2036658
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