Glacier Express Since we did the bit of the Glacier Express from Visp to Zermatt in 2005, we’ve been keen to do the whole thing from St. Moritz to Zermatt. So we did.
St Moritz Bound Saturday - We flew from Heathrow to Zurich. The transfer from Zurich Airport to St. Moritz was quite long and necessitated changing trains twice. However, travelling 1st class on Switzerland's clean and punctual trains, it was pretty much no chore at all.This is a miscellaneous view from the train on the last leg of the journey, from Chur to St. Moritz.
St Moritz Consequently, it was fairly late when we made it to St. Moritz. This is a view of the tower of the church that was right next to our hotel, the Monopol.It’s a very nice hotel in a good location in the middle of the town, which makes it handy for the shops and restaurants, but a bit of an uphill hike from the station that you’re almost certainly not going to want to experience with your suitcases in tow.
Piz Nair Sunday - Lovely weather, so we decided to jump straight in and get a cable car to one of the highest points in the area - Piz Nair. The cable car station is at an altitude of 10,029 feet and offers some very nice views.
Piz Nair View This is the view looking back toward St. Moritz, which is just to the left of the lake on the right and therefore not actually visible from here.In the bottom of the picture you can see some intrepid hikers just about to complete the 4,000 foot ascent from St. Moritz.I was feeling enthusiastic and decided to walk down. Judith wasn’t feeling quite so enthusiastic and decided to get the cable car back down and meet me at Corviglia, which, at 8,150 feet, is about half way down to St. Moritz.
Steep The path down looked pretty steep from the top, but I think it might have looked even steeper looking back up.
Cable Car After about 15 minutes, Judith passed overhead in the cable car.
Corviglia After about 50 minutes I arrived at Corviglia. The guide book said the descent should have taken about 1 hour 45 minutes, which might go some way to explaining why my thighs were so sore the following morning.
St Moritz View So I met up with Judith, we had a bite to eat and then started walking the remaining 2,000-or-so feet back down to our hotel. This is a miscellaneous view of St. Moritz (to the left of the lake) from the path. The town to the right of the lake is St. Moritz Bad.
Marmot On the way down we saw several marmots, although we never managed to get particularly close to one, as you can tell from the extreme zoom I had to use to get this photo.
Cows Alpine cows against a backdrop of mountains. Nice.
Posh On the way back to the hotel, we passed this rather posh looking apartment block. That looks like a rather nice place to live.
Muottas Muragi As it was still quite early when we got back to the hotel, we thought we’d do a bit more sightseeing. So we got the bus to the Punt Muragi Talstation and then got the train up to Muottas Muragi. At just over 8,000 feet, Muottas Muragi is a fair bit lower than Piz Nair, but the views are still excellent.photo doesn’t really capture how steep a slope the train is climbing.
Muottas Muragi As I said, the views are pretty impressive.
Homeward Bound We got the train back down to Punt Muragi Talstation and, as the weather was still lovely, decided to walk the couple of miles back to the hotel.
St Moritz See Sunday - Another lovely day. After yesterday’s exploits at Piz Nair, my thighs are feeling really quite sore this morning, although Judith is faring slightly better. So we decide to try the relatively flat walk from St. Moritz to the cable car station at Corvatsch Surlej.We start off by taking in the view of St. Moritz across St. Moritz See. Evidently “See” means “Lake” or similar.
Kempinski Hotel We then walk to St. Moritz Bad and pass the Kempinski Hotel, which is currently the number 1 rated hotel in St. Moritz on Trip Advisor. It does look rather nice.
Surlej The walk is uneventful, albeit a little bit more up-and-down than my thighs would have liked, and after a couple of hours we arrive in Surlej, which is where the Corvatsch Surlej cable car station is.
Corvatsch We get the cable car from Corvatsch Talstation Surlej (6,135 feet) to Corvatsch Mittelstation Murtel (8,865 feet) and then switch to another cable car for the final leg up to Corvatsch Bergstation, which, at 10,836 feet, is the highest tourist viewing point in the area. As you might expect, the views are magnificent. This photo was taken from the cable car on the way up.
Corvatsch Bergstation A view of the other cable car on its way down.
Corvatsch View The view looking back towards Silvaplana to the left of the lake and Surlej to the right. St. Moritz is obscured by the mountain to the right. Corvatsch Mittelstation is just about visible at the end of the cables.
Corvatsch Bergstation The view of Corvatsch Bergstation from the cable car.
Corvatsch Bergstation View The view from 10,836 feet. St. Moritz is now kist visible in the middle right of the picture. That’s where we walked from earlier this morning.As it was lunchtime and they have a really nice restaurant at Corvatsch Bergstation, we decided to stop for a bite to eat. The food was excellent, although rather expensive. However, given where we were, that wasn’t maybe too unreasonable.
Piz Nair View After lunch we got the cable cars back down to Corvatsch Surlej and set off on the walk back to the hotel. The peak slightly to the left of the centre of this photo is Piz Nair, where I walked down from yesterday. It looks pretty high from here.
St Moritz See The view across the lake at St. Moritz. Near the top of the peak in the distance, just to the left of centre, you can just about make out the hotel/restaurant at Muottas Muragi, which is where we went yesterday afternoon.When we got back to the hotel we decided to call it a day. Legs feeling ready to drop off at this point.
Glacier Express Tuesday - Yet another lovely day. Fortunately for my legs, today we’re transferring from St. Moritz to Zermatt on the Glacier Express. This 291km railway journey is known as one of the best in the world and includes 291 bridges and 91 tunnels.The train left St. Moritz at 09:19 and takes 7 hours to get to Zermatt.
Carriage This is the 1st class carriage we were travelling in. The wrap-around windows provide an fabulous view. During the journey we were also served an excellent lunch, which was just as well given the duration of the trip.
Glacier Express View I took loads of photos from the train, but few of them do any sort of justice to the magnificent scenery. This one shows how well the polarizing filter on my camera was working...
Glacier Express No View ...when compared to a photo taken a few seconds later without it. Nice.
Parkhotel Eventually, and with a brain virtually bursting after looking at seven continuous hours of magnificent views, we arrived in Zermatt. Our hotel’s little electric buggy picked us up for the transfer to the Parkhotel Beau-Site.It’s worth mentioning that this is a really exceptional hotel. The hotel is very pretty and well maintained, the staff are excellent...
Parkhotel View ...and the views from the balconies of the rooms on the front of the hotel are absolutely magnificent.
Edelweiss This view is also from the balcony of our room at the Parkhotel. In the middle of the photo, about two thirds of the way up, you can just about make out the tiny hotel/restaurant Edelweiss, which is perched 1,119 feet above Zermatt. The last time we were here, I took to walking up there in the mornings before breakfast.
Edelweiss at Maximum Zoom Wednesday - Still lovely weather. I woke up quite early and decided to walk up to Edelweiss to stretch my legs before breakfast. I arrived at 7am and texted Judith to a) wake her up, and b) tell her I’d arrived. This is a photo she took of me from our hotel balcony. You can just about make me out, standing at the fence in the black t-shirt, just below the hotel balcony.
Gornergrat After breakfast we decided to get the train up to Gornograt, which, at 10,553 feet, is pretty high. It’s also, by quite some margin, the most popular destination for tourists visiting Zermatt - particularly Japanese ones. I estimate that around 95% of the people that we saw up here were Japanese. They are incredibly polite and friendly though.
Gornergrat Hotel They’ve built a hotel since we were here last. Due to the excellent visibility at this altitude, they had the foresight to stick a couple of observatories on the roof. Although it doesn’t show up well in this photo, the roof of the hotel is made of copper.The ever-present Matterhorn can be seen in the distance.
Rotenboden Having hung around at Gornegrat for a while, we got the train down to Rotenboden (9,236 feet) to take some photos.This is also a very popular destination for Japanese tourists. You can just about make out some of them around the lake. It seems to be THE thing for them to do here to get the train to Rotenboden and walk down to Riffelberg. Can’t say I blame them. If you’re only here for a day and have only got the time for one hike, it’s a fantastic hike to do.
Jet A jet zoomed past flying (relatively) low and at very high speed. I can see now why they occasionally crash into cable cars.
Dirt Monster Back in Zermatt, I stumble on this, which is for rent. It appears to be some sort of mountain bike, although quite what purpose it serves that a normal mountain bike doesn’t, I can’t quite ascertain. Looks like a hoot though.
Furi It’s still early(-ish) so we get the cable car from Zermatt up to Furi (6,125 feet)...
Klein Matterhorn ...switch to another cable car to Trockener Stegg (9,624 feet) and then switch to get another cable car for the final leg up to Klein Matterhorn, which, at 12,740 feet, is the highest view point in Europe.
Klein Matterhorn I took loads of photos the last time I was up here, so I’ll suffice with this one, which shows how snowy it is this high up, even in July. That’s Italy in the distance.
Schwarzee Paradise From Klein Matterhorn, we got the cable cars back down to Furi, then back up to Schwarzee Paradise (8,474 feet).
Matterhorn Trail It’s finally time to stretch our legs a bit and we pick up the Matterhorn Train at Schwarzee Paradise and follow it for about three hours, all the way back to Zermatt.As the trail runs right along the lower slopes of the Matterhorn, you get some magnificent, close-up views of the mountain, which, obviously, the photographs never quite manage to do justice to. The peak of the Matterhorn is about 7,000 feet (1.5 vertical miles) above where this photo was taken from. Awesome. I highly recommend that everyone go there and see this. You won’t regret it.About an hour after this photo was taken, about half way back to Zermatt, it rained very heavily for about an hour. It was the only point during the week that we got rained on and it was the only opportunity I had to try out my new Rohan rain cape, which worked magnificently.
Rothorn Thursday - Yet another lovely day. After I’d scooted up to Edelweiss before breakfast, we start the day by getting the funicular railway from Zermatt up to Sunnega Paradise (7,507 feet) and then switching to this small cable car that takes us up to Blauherd (8,435 feet). From there we get one of the large cable cars up to Rothorn Paradise (10,180 feet).
Gornergrat from Rothorn This is the view of Gornegrat, where we were yesterday, from Rothorn Paradise. You can just make out the hotel in the middle of the photo, near the bottom. Gronegrat is at 10,135 feet, which is slightly lower than where I’m standing. The mountains behind are around 15,000 feet high, which would be why they look so very, very big.
Paragliders You can do tandem paragliding from Rothorn Paradise for about £80. Here’s a couple silhouetted against the Findelgletscher. Bonkers.
Oberrothorn It’s only 11am and this intrepid group of hikers have already made it to the top of Oberrothorn, the nearest peak to Rothorn Paradise.
Oberrothorn This perhaps gives a better impression of their achievement. This is a wider-angle view of Oberrothorn and they’re standing on the “little” patch of snow at the top.
5-Seenweg We get the cable car back down to Blauherd and decide to stretch our legs on the 5-Seenweg (5 lakes walk). You can just see the second of the lakes, Grindjisee, ahead of Judith.
5-Seenweg A miscellaneous view of the Matterhorn on the 5-Seenweg.
Black and White Back at the hotel and Judith encouraged me to try taking some black and white photos. Looks okay I suppose.
Colour I still think I prefer the colour ones though.
Grampi's Sitting in Grampi’s bar in Zermatt in the evening, watching the Japanese tourists hurry by with their umbrellas up during one of the brief evening downpours that seemed to occur every day. Quite refreshing really. Clears the air (not that the air isn’t already about a hundred times cleaner than any of the other air I get to breath when I’m at home).
Gornergrat - Again Friday - Amazingly, the weather is still fantastic. We get the train back up to Gornegrat, mainly because we can. We’ve got unlimited travel passes and they cost a small fortune, so we feel obliged to make the most of them.
Riffelalp On the way back down from Gornegrat we get off the train at Riffelalp (7,254 feet) to have a look at the cunningly well hidden 5-star Riffelalp resort. Because it’s not visible from the train, tourists don’t tend to get off here, so it’s a small haven of tranquility just off the very well trodden path to Gornegrat. The hotel looks really nice and there are three or four restaurants that are probably also really nice. However, given it’s location and the fact that it’s a 5-star resort, it’s not a cheap place to be.
Riffelalp We decide to walk the final bit back to Zermatt - a modest 2,000 foot descent.
Train Sunday - And that was all the mountain walking done. Back on the lovely Swiss trains to Geneva for the flight home.We’ve been really lucky with the weather this week and, in St. Moritz, we’ve discovered another top-notch Swiss resort to visit. I think I can safely say that this week has definitely served to further reinforce the Swiss Alps as my favourite holiday destination in the world.I’m looking forward to going back already.
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