The Matterhorn and Montreux

Thursday 6th May

At breakfast this morning (in Brig) we noticed it had stopped raining and there was a hint of blue sky - so decided to try to see the Matterhorn today insted of tomorrow. A hotel staff member told us that they have had 5 days of continuous rain but that it was more normal for them to have 3 months of sun and no rain at all! A bit depressing given the awful weather yesterday but oh well! Can't be helped!

Our journey from Brig to Zermatt (where Matterhorn is) was great. Finally got to see the sun on some snow covered mountains. Wow - such a bright white!!!

Well - as we rounded the last corner to Zermatt, we saw it. A huge, completely white and CLOUD FREE mountain - the Matterhorn!!! I was a bit emotional actually! I didn't actually cry but was a bit choked up!! A dream come true and a moment I'll never forget! We were MUCH closer to it than the photos show - a limitation of my iPhone camera - my 'real' pictures look fantastic!!




We got off train and walked straight over to the Gornergrat railway - which takes you up to about 3100 ft high and right past the Matterhorn. A train was due to leave in a few minutes and we nervously waited in line to get a ticket - next train was in one hour - the weather and visibility changes so quickly in the Alps it was quite possible that it all could be shrouded in cloud by the time we saw it again. We got on the train with about 1 minute to spare!!

We grinned our heads off all the way to Gornergrat!! Not only was the sun shining but Zermatt's buildings and trees were covered with snow - a winter wonderland. The whole ride up (about 40 or 50 mins I think) was breathtaking.




There is a restaurant and look out (complete with blankets!!!) overlooking the Matterhorn and also Gornergrat Glacier. It was -2 degrees but surprisingly bearable! Actually the sun was quite hot and I got a bit sunburnt!! We certainly noticed the altitude though and were both quite dizzy at times!




We finished the day with a walk around Zermatt - then shared some potato rosti and a cheese fondue in a very cute restaurant. Yummmmmm!




It was an absolutely and utterly perfect day!!!!!

Friday 7th May - visited Vevey and Montreux on Lake Geneva - in an area known as the Swiss Riviera. Quite cold and a bit rainy - but a nice day.

Vevey is where Charlie Chaplin lived for the latter part of his life - we saw a statue of him along the waterfront.

Both Vevey and Montreux have a beautiful waterfront - would be gorgeous in nice weather. Both places were both French speaking and so we got to try out our French!!!

We visited Chillon Castle in Montreux -a pretty nice looking castle jutting out into the lake. Also would have been very picturesque on a clear day as it has a bunch of rather huge mountains behind it that, even just seeing glimpses of them through the cloud, looked superimposed!!!!




Look for the large dark area of cloud above the castle (castle in middle of pic). Above the dark area of cloud there is a faint line of dark cloud - THAT is the tops of the mountains!

Tomorrow - Lauterbrunnen

Lots of love and aufwiedersehen for now!!