5 a.m. in Zermatt.
I finally turned off the snooze button after who-knows how many times it had rang. Our legs were aching and our eyes were unbelievably sleepy from all the tiredness in Austria a couple days ago. Zermat was our second city in Switzerland, and it has been for several days since we had to wake up so early in the morning even though the sun hadn’t risen yet.
Why so early, you’d probably wonder.
Simply, we had dozens of agenda in Switzerland while realizing our allocated days weren’t matched to it, thus, every hour was precious to make the best of our days. And we were going to see the Matterhorn today! What was cooler than seeing the mountain in the early sunrise.
Matterhorn was probably the most iconic mountain in Switzerland, thanks to the famous Toblerone logo. The almost perfect triangle formed by thousand years of rocky formation. To reach the peak of the mountain, we had to buy a train ticket of Gornergratbahn or Gornergrat Railways. This ticket allows you to explore all the mountain areas including hiking to many spots around it. At the end of the railway station is Gornergrat Station itself, the observatory area to see Matterhorn up close and the glaciers it offers. It cost us 88 CHF (around 1,3mn IDR) though we got a discount of 20% as we already purchased a Swiss Pass for the trip – you see how expensive the price is! And that’s for the train ticket only.
After a 30 minute ride to the top of the mountain, we were stunned by the view lying before our eyes.
The temperature at the top dropped about zero Celcius. Our ears easily became red and we could sense the air was getting thinner. Even our breaths no longer produced those white smokes as if we were already cold inside out. We had to adjust our jackets, zipping them so tight. Gloves were definitely mandatory. You could imagine the difficulties of wanting to take pictures with my camera while your hands were just basically frozen.
But the beauty of sunrise – the explosion of color red, orange and yellow – up above the icy glaciers mountain paid it all off. Even we witnessed our very first snowfall there, how magical.
After spending hours freezing outside, we had to take shelter in the nice warm restaurant. While other people were eager to order breakfast there, we, who realized the steep prices, only managed to buy a cup of hot tea for each of us. Silently and shamelessly (skills that are needed in Swiss), we took out our food provision. Enjoying yesterday’s bread with stolen jam from the breakfast buffet in our previous hotel in St. Moritz. (In separate writing I’ll tell you how we’ve become a skilled chef during our European trip)
This Gornergratbahn ticket we bought had included all other stations down below so we were free to roam the area back-forth and to do hiking if it was our thing (which sadly no). From the internet, we gathered that there was a small lake, Riffelsee Lake, that beautifully reflected Matterhorn in its unruffled water surface. We took one station below to Rotenboden station, from there we did a 10 minutes downward walk to the lake. The short path was not at all difficult or required special requirements.
However, the hiking back was ultimately tiresome. For now, let’s enjoy the breathtaking God’s creation.
We had a perfect timing window on Riffelsee Lake because from where we were at the Gornergrat observatory the Matterhorn was hindered by clouds. The wind was not in our favor to blow the other way to clear up the sky. On Riffelsee Lake, for just a few minutes we got the picture perfect view of the mountain. The flawless inverted mirror-image of Matterhorn was reflected on the still icy water.
Gornergratbahn links the resort village of Zermatt. During its launch, it was the highest railway in all Europe up until the opening of the Jungfraujoch, which we had the chance to visit on the next day to see Top of Europe (will post it in separate writing). Zermatt by its etymology “at the meadow” is famed as a ski resort, mountaineering and, to us, definitely a honeymoon go-to place. It’s an idyllic little village with wooden houses and colorful flowers from their balcony. Along the roads and alleyways, there are lots of souvenir shops, luxurious watches stores and laid-back restaurants – such a place to truly capitalize tourism activities.
Matterhorn is clearly visible from the valley of Zermatt, a mountain overlooks the villagers below. The view of this prominent mountain alongside the little houses was something out of a storybook. To make the overall scene more serene and to prevent air pollution that could obscure this wonderful scenery, all Zermatt is a car-free zone. It only allows electric or battery-driven transportation mode which go almost completely silent. You go everywhere by foot and it’s a normal view for a couple or a family dragging their luggage to-and-fro the station.
In the absence of public transportation’s loud machines and cars’ honkings, what’s left is the noise of people’s interaction, their laughter and shared conversation, connecting to each other, being a presence to one another under the majestic view of Matterhorn.
R
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