Zermatt
Switzerland diary : Day 2 - 06 April 2014
Almost on the Southern border of Switzerland is this rare jewel of a village, ZERMATT. This village lies right below its iconic pyramid shaped mountain peak of the MATTERHORN. Skiing, hiking, mountain climbing and many other activities is what makes this village so special. It is split into the new and old village. As such, Switzerland thrives on tourism, this village is no exception. What is fascinating is that the entire village is a car-free zone. The vehicles used here are only battery operated. Bicycles are plenty. This was imposed in order to avoid any pollution blocking the views of the beautiful Matterhorn peak.
We had decided to take the fascinating "Glacier Express" train journey from Chur that morning. Therefore Zermatt, which is the end point of this journey, became our obvious choice of destination, that evening. We reached the village at 5 pm. As we had our accommodation in Interlaken, we had just under three hours to explore the Village.
Though getting to Gornergrat, Sunnega and Schwarzsee, using funiculars from Zermatt, is a part of any tourist's to-do list, we had to give it a skip due to shortage of time. We preferred taking a quick tour around the old village- called HINTERDORF ( meaning - rear village). We collected the map of Zermatt village from the tourist office located in the Zermatt train station. Suggestions came in from a petite fair lady in the tourist office, who marked circles on our map, suggesting two "doable" routes. This gave us a fair idea of what to see in the limited time we had. We stepped out feeling like real explorers with the map in our hands. We gathered our route before we set off. We crossed the main streets of Zermatt to soon reach the Old village.
The rare ancient architecture of the entire village was unique and eye catching. It is said that the village has around 30 such sturdy houses, made of hard wood, timber and resin and roofed with hard , heavy stone. These materials ensured to keep pests away. The walk around this winding village, took us back in time. Short, beautiful balconies, barns, houses and stables clinging to one another in vintage fashion, irregularly on the cobbled stone street, fountains at the base of memorials, coupled with dead silence on the pathway gave us a complete feel of the life that could have existed during the medieval times. Some of the structures are more than 400 years old. The village is said to have been inhabited mostly between the 16th and 18th centuries. Today it serves as a heritage site.
The rare ancient architecture of the entire village was unique and eye catching. It is said that the village has around 30 such sturdy houses, made of hard wood, timber and resin and roofed with hard , heavy stone. These materials ensured to keep pests away. The walk around this winding village, took us back in time.
The walk around the old village didn't take much time. We took a turn to a road above the flowing river. There it was the MATTERHORN peak. Our first glimpses of the mountain was not so clear. There was fog and mist surrounding it, making it very faint. As we moved forward on that road, the views got clearer. Capturing the pyramid in all its glory was the idea. I succeeded finally and was happy. Church bells chimed all along, getting us curious on its whereabouts. We found the church hidden slightly in the interiors on that street, right below the Matterhorn. After the photo shooting activity, we walked a little further , turned to the right and got back to the main street , where the railway station of Zermatt is stationed.
We spent about an hour loitering on the streets, enjoying sights of the busy markets around the train station and then stopped for some coffee.
We met a couple from Malaysia, whose cute kiddo attracted our attention. We played around a bit before bidding farewell. We shopped for a few souvenirs. There were some amazing hoardings atop a few shops. The one in the Shape of a Croissant atop a cafe' was just brilliant. Now for some FUN FACTS : Fun fact No. 1 - A local, educated us on the fact that, the very widely known chocolate brand "TOBLERONE" got it's solid triangular shape as a result of inspiration drawn from the shape of this peak of MATTERHORN. Oh ! that was cool
Fun fact No. 2 - The top portion of this Matterhorn peak, i.e what comes to one's view when you stare at it, seemingly belongs to Africa !! Yes...As the years passed Africa kept drifting away from Europe, in Stages. In experiments conducted by geologists, the samples of the top portion of this mountain consists of rocks formed thousands of years ago in Africa, whilst the samples of the rocks down under the Matterhorn belongs to ancient Europe. Therefore the top portion of Matterhorn is confirmed to be of African origin. During drifting of land, the peak somehow found its way towards Europe. Cool ! isn't it ?
Before long, it was time to get back to Interlaken by train. We waited a while at the station before our train arrived. We got back to Interlaken West safely. This was end of day 2 in Switzerland.