Zermatt a premier destination!
by Mark Kempster on 13/08/09 at 3:53 pm
What a great destination. If you love outdoors, walking, mountaineering and climbing then Zermatt is one of the premier destinations to visit. There is a good choice of hotels and self catering accommodation and many restaurants to visit of all standards and budgets covered. The town is car free which makes a pleasant change and helps to add to the “clean mountain air” the train comes into the town centre and from here the hotels operate an electric taxi service in a typical Swiss efficient manor. A visit to the museum in Zermatt is a must as it gives a good insight into the history of the town and the climbing and the great story of Edward Whymper’s first but tragic ascent of the Matterhorn.
The Matterhorn (Mount Cervin) dominates the town of Zermatt and can be seen from almost everywhere, even if you are not looking up at the Matterhorn then everything about Zermatt is focused on the Matterhorn. To enjoy the pleasures of Zermatt and the surrounding area you do not have to be a hardcore mountaineer or climber although if you are then there are many peaks over 4000m here. The average person can walk around the mountains along many lovely well made paths either traversing the sides of the hill or climbing up and down. You don’t need to walk from Zermatt town you can catch the lift up to a starting point and then go from here either up or down. You do see a lot of people who catch the lift up and walk down, particularly older people and those with families.
There are numerous mountain huts all seem to be staffed by friendly people willing to serve you their own speciality. My personal favourites are the Edelweiss, Trift and the hut in the little hamlet at Tuftern although there are many more.
We did 5 days out of 6 of good walking covering 12+ miles most days with some big ascents and feel much better for it we were also lucky with the weather and only really had one half day of rain which coincided with a rest day anyway. We also saw an eagle sawing high above us and found in just one spot the elusive Edelweiss flower, we managed to get on top of most of the accessible big peaks in the area mainly walking up and down from Zermatt – none of this catching the lift up!!!
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