Thursday August 25: St Moritz to Zermatt
Glacier Express
We are now in Zermatt. It has been a long day.
Breakfast was supposed to begin at 7:45. We got our stuff ready early and went down at 7:30, and started eating.
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We finished around 8:15 and started down the hill to the train station. It was *much* easier bringing the luggage downhill rather than hauling it uphill.
We got to the train station by around 8:30, which left us about 20 minutes to get organized and settled.
Amy and Sam got the window seats, but pictures were somewhat tricky due to the reflections and glare from the windows. That didn't stop us from taking oodles of pictures. Hopefully some of them are decent.
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There are a number of places where the track makes a complete circle to change altitude in a short distance, but these are all in tunnels, so you really can't tell that they're there.
Overall, we went north out of the valley of St Moritz, west up one valley, through a tunnel, and then down another valley. Finally, we turned south and went up the valley of Zermatt.
We stopped at a few stations to let people off or on. On a few occasions we could step out for a short while. On two of those occasions, I went out and bought a bottle of water for a much better price than they would have charged on the train. On the second such occasion, I had to go some distance into the station to find a store. I returned to the train 8 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, but I couldn't help wondering what I would feel if I came up and found the train was already gone. That would have been bad.
At one stop, there was a very tall giraffe walking around. He went up to two guys who looked like they were riding a T-Rex each. I have no idea what they were doing walking around the station like that.
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We were hoping to see more snow-covered mountains, but not at the end of August. I think spring would be a better time for that.
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Going up the valley to Zermatt, there were some steep sections where they used a cog mechanism to prevent slipping.
About 10-15 minutes from Zermatt, we had an unexpected stop. The conductor came through and said that the overhead wire had broken up ahead, so we were going to stay there for a half hour before continuing.
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At Zermatt, we found our apartment. We weren't sure how to get in, as there was no front desk. Amy ended up calling the number on the front door. She was directed to some sort of machine, entered a number that she was given, and a key dropped down. That key unlocked our room.
The layout is a bit strange. You go in the "front door" and down a half flight of stairs. A short way down the hallway, you go up a full flight of stairs, and there is our apartment. So the floor of our apartment is probably about 5 feet above the ground.
This place is more of an apartment than a hotel. There are two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen/dining room (as well as a bathroom).
Our first stop was to visit the local grocery store and get stuff for breakfast. Then we went out to have dinner. I had been hoping that Zermatt would be cheaper than St. Moritz, but such is not the case. We ate at a modest place. Sam and I both got hamburgers and fries, and Amy got a risotto dish. Throw in two juices and a coke, and the total was over $100. Yikes! I got the burger as it was one of the lesser expensive meals. Still, I couldn't finish mine (neither could Sam), but since we have a fridge, Sam took the leftovers home to put in the fridge for later.
I never realized how much the Matterhorn looms over the town. I figured that it would be visible in the distance, but it looks almost like if it fell over, it would land on the town. We were coming home from dinner around 9:30 or so, and we could see three or four tiny lights halfway up the Matterhorn, presumably climbers.
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