Sunnega
Next morning we walk up on a perfectly clear sky that held all day. We packed in a hurry and drove 30 min to Tasch, the last place before Zermatt where you can drive. Zermatt is a car-free town. All cars are parked in Tasch, where is a huge parking place incorporated in a new spiffy train terminal, or in many outside parkings that offer also shuttle services. The trains are running every 20 minutes and it takes about 12 min to reach Zermatt for about CH15 RT, Eight outside of Zermatt train station is a very friendly tourist office where we went to get some local info about hikes and we decided to go up the mountain to Rothorn from where the views of the Matterhorn are perfect. From there we could have came down on various paths but we picked one that was passing a number of alpine lakes on the way. The cabin ticket was around CH104. After a short breakfast we boarded the underground inclined cogwheel train that brought us to Sunnega, from where after several photos we took a ski cabin to Blauherd. Here we stopped for a while to admire the majestic views of the Matterhorn and we took lots of photos of a horned sheep herd and after a while we took the last cabin to Rothorn.
Matterhorn
The views from the top are extreme. The glacier, the snow covered peaks and the Matterhorn are so beautiful that it took us a while to decide to leave. We started climbing down admiring the views for different locations till we got to Flugalp, a cabin on the way so nicely located that again it took hours till we left that place. I did some walking around it, close to the glacier whose melted water roars down the valley and to see marmots that are basking in the sun. From the cabin we walked down on the 5-lake path, that is marked but is so confusing that you easily miss lakes. There are more than one path marked with the same number and all carry the same alpine sign. Again asking around nobody could explain which way to take so picked our own and were able to see some of the 5 lakes on going down. But with all this beauty surrounding us we were very close to miss the last train from Sunegga to Zermatt….The hike normally does not take more than 2 hours from Rothorn to Sunegga and if go around to see all the lakes it may take 3-3,5 hours.
Zermatt
After descent we walked a little bit in Zermatt, discovering the church, the cemetery of the Alpinists and the old quarter with the old wood houses and barns dating from the 17th century, hopefully to be preserved in the flurry of new hotel building that took over the entire resort. We walked the main commercial street listening again the alphorn guys and we set for a good dinner in a local restaurant right in front of the railway station. Thinking that it would be a walk in the park to find a room we left around 9pm from Zermatt, picked up the car and started to drive to Visp but no rooms where available on the way, some places had rooms but were renting only for two days minimum, till we got to the same place and the same “zimmer” as the night before, in Akersand, woke up the owner, paid for the room and got in the room for a good snooze till the following morning,
Follow us on Instagram