Zermatt Tour Day 2 Morning
Zermatt – Touring with Amadé Perrig on the Morning of Day 2
The breakfast dining room
at the Swiss Alpine Hotel Allalin is on a two-level lower floor, opening out onto a quiet
garden oasis.
Zermatt had changed a bit
since we last visited in 2010, though its historic buildings are all carefully
maintained, and the town is as charming as ever. It was just before the busy mountain-climbing and hiking
season, and there was quite a lot of construction and renovation work being
done. We were surprised by all the tall sky cranes dotting the village as the
resort area looked to be expanding.
On our way to the
Gornergrat train station, we bumped in Christie Stewart again, and we were able
to say au revoir as we would be seeing her in a couple days in Lausanne.
Zermatt Tourism's Amadé
Perrig, whom we had met during our last visit, is very proud of the town in
which he was born, and justifiably so. While ostensibly retired, Amadé is
renowned as a consultant in the development of some of the best-known ski
resorts throughout the world, and as an advisor to cities bidding on the Winter
Olympics. We were honoured and privileged to have him as our guide for a whole
day.
Amadé constantly pointed
out expansions and modifications in the skiable footprint around Zermatt, and
the huge investments in not only providing access to ski runs from the village,
but how to make them interconnected with high-speed chairs, gondolas, even
elevators and a funicular, to make a day of skiing more varied.
As well, the resort is
constantly upgrading in people-moving equipment like detachable-chair
technology to make going back up the mountain less tiring and more comfortable,
while moving more skiers at a time to reduce line-ups. And moving to more and
more activities like mountain biking and parasailing along with hiking and
mountaineering in the summer, and year ’round skiing to make the resort appeal
to visitors from around world.
Of course the big draw is
still the Matterhorn.
We went on a whirlwind tour using trains,
the funicular, and
gondolas to visit the Gornergrat, Sunnega, and the glacier on the Little
Matterhorn to see a variety of different views of the star attraction, and
other impressive peaks and panoramic vistas.
Timing is everything.
While it was sunny the day we arrived, the Matterhorn sat below a veil of high
overcast for most of our second day. Still, we found all views of the pinnacle
impressive.
While we were supposed to
hike down from the Gornergrat station, the late-May snows hadn't all melted,
and a lot of the trails were still quite soggy with slush. Amadé's adjustments
to our itinerary were less strenuous than a hike, yet still made for a very
interesting day. After hopping off the high-speed funicular from Sunnega,
(with a quick pit stop for
coffee…)
we did just a gentle hike
from the station to lunch at the Restaurant Julen.
Along the way to the
restaurant, Amadé reminisced a bit about his youth in the valley as part of a
farming family with six kids. Yes, he and his siblings were responsible for
tending the cows in high alpine pastures, along with cutting hay by hand and
storing the winter's feed in traditional haylofts like those remaining in
Zermatt. He pointed out that most of Zermatt was still pasture land while he
was growing up. And today on the steep terrain, there are small comfortable
hotels, and restaurants with fine dining almost everywhere.
(Continued after lunch at Julen
Restaurant)
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