August 4 – Thursday - It’s a sleep in morning. We are checking out today. Later today we will be heading out to Malpensa airport to pick up M’s mum, sister Sherry, and husband, Mark. They are due to arrive at 3:30. They will be coming in on the same connector plane as Suzanne and the kids, 2 weeks previous.
After checking out of the hotel, we went for our final cap near the tram stop, and lunch at the Taormina restaurant. It takes some negotiating of the streets to find our way, as we were trying to find it from a different direction. It’s about 30 degrees again, so we are in search of shade while looking. We arrive at the restaurant and are greeted warmly by the owner, he shakes both of our hands to thank us for coming in yet again, his wife also comes by to say hello. We chose the menu di giorno for 8 Euro, an awesome deal. T and M wondered how do they make money on it. Yet again it is busy with lots of locals. We had risotto parmigiana, cognolio forno (roasted rabbit) and vegetables. It was a fabulous meal and a great way to end our Milano stay.
We decide to pick up some groceries from a nearby store in preparation or tomorrow’s breakfast at our new accommodation in Breiten, Switzerland. We arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare and the flight is on time. We are able to get onto the road by 4:15 heading north on the Autostrata. We head up along the west side of Lake Maggiore where we had stayed in early July. We soon head into the mountains after leaving the view of the lake at Stresa. The Italian towns through the mountain passes into Switzerland are fairly small. The mountains are heavily treed and as we ascend along some switchbacks into the Simplon Pass lush green pastures begin to appear as well as Alpen peaks and glaciers. To top it off, the sky is blue with not too much cloud – a treat for our newly arrived visitors.
Once at the top of the pass, we must descend a long ways to get to the valley below where we will head east to the Morel. With the help of Navi we find our next accommodation, check-in, and then head to a local restaurant for a wonderful local dinner.
August 5 – Friday – We have a traditional European breakfast with cheese, salami, bread, coffee, yogurt and fruit. We have decided that we are off to the Swiss Alp town of Zermatt located below the Matterhorn and Monte Rossa. We are in the valley north of Brig where the small villages are located in the valley between ridges of the Swiss Alps.
We were told that we could drive up the valley from Brig up to the village of Tasch. It is here that we must park our van in a parkade and take the train up to Zermatt. This journey takes us about 20 minutes. It is a very pleasant trip viewing the glacial water filled creeks and the mountain scenes. The village of Zermatt is a vehicle free zone with the exception of the electric powered vehicles that are already in the village servicing hotels, etc. We stop in at tourist information to find out about how we can get to the Matterhorn Glacial Paradise. We are instructed to walk to the other end of the village where the gondola and subsequent cable car were to reach the top of the Matterhorn Glacier. So we walk through the town, admiring the Swiss village architecture and the great surrounding mountain scenery providing a backdrop to the buildings.
We find a small café for lunch, and most of have a BBQ brat while Ruby (M’s Mum) has a nice sandwich. Fortified for the afternoon’s events we head further up the road to find the gondola.
We reached the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise by using a gondola lift taking us from Zermatt at 1620 m up to Troekener Steg at 2939 m. We had to change to a tram cable car taking us to the top at 3883m (or 12,739 ft). As we neared the top, the tram car was moving virtually vertical to slowly approach the landing dock.
What a view we had of the glacier!
It was way up here that people were snowboarding as well as skiing - warning signs posted to warn skiers to use experienced guides to avoid crevices. One could ski into Italy from here as well.
At this elevation, we can feel the lack of oxygen. M has a sinus infection and was feeling the pressure and he didn’t want to endure the cold within the ice palace. M and his mom went into the lookout, restaurant area, while Sherry, Mark A, T and J take an elevator down into the glacier ice palace. Was it ever cool being right inside the glacier hearing water flowing overhead in crevices atop of us. We wandered through, enjoying various sculptures and the ice-crystalled ceiling. J found a slide within a tunnel which he went down twice.
T also went, feeling the rock hard ice surface beneath the little vinyl flying saucer (ouch)! We had a good laugh. Mark A was beginning to feel the high elevation, so we called it quits and ascended to the restaurant to meet up with M and his mom. We were able to see most of the Matterhorn, and most of Monte Rosa (the highest one in the area, but not as well known as the Matterhorn due to its more difficult climb) as just a small portion of the mountaintops were enclosed in cloud. We had a great view of the surrounding mountains. What a treat! As we descended, we could pick out many of the hiking trails that are accessed from various ski lifts, trams and cable cars.
Once back at the village, we slowly made our way through the main street, stopping to browse at different shops. Sherry and Ruby bought postcards, many of us had gelato, and T found a great deal on some hiking shorts so she scoops them up. While we were ambling through town we stopped to listen to a man playing his Alpen horn and was accompanied by a woman playing the panpipes.
We also saw a herd of goats being shepherded through the village; J even reached out and patted a goat as it passed.
We left the village near 6 pm to catch the train back to Tasch and pick up the van. Mark A drove as M’s knee was acting up and interfering with shifting the gears. We stopped in Visp, a town near Brig to pick up a few more groceries. Everyone pitches in to pick up things and then we head back to Breiten for a homemade dinner with the obligatory good wine.
August 6 – Saturday – We are up by 8:30 and have decided that we are going to walk down into the village of Morel which is a couple of road levels down from Breiten where we are staying, and then ascend to the area above. In this area of Switzerland there are a number of villages accessible by road which have trams, gondolas, and lifts which in the summer allow people access to a myriad of hiking trails and viewing some amazing glaciers which have become classified as UNESCO sites and in the winter, skiing from village to village.
The Aletsch Glacier is located up in the mountains above Morel and Breiten. We take the cable car and gondola up to view the glacier. M and T are surprised to find out that this glacier is on the other side of Jungfrau, Monch and the Eiger which we had seen from the other side of these Alps when we had stayed in Wengen.
We walked down into Morel to catch the cable car at 759 m up to Mitten at 1905 m. Here we come across a small village with hotels, apartments, and a few homes, alpine huts probably used by farmers who have their sheep and cattle in the alpine meadows. There is even a golf course, M asks a passing man from Holland who informs him his shots go 15% further up here in the thinner air. We stop for a bite to eat at an inn and we find out that this region is busy with hiking in the summer, but their busy time is winter.
Our waitress told us that there are 100km of ski runs in this area and skiers can go from one village to the next - utilizing all the different lifts.
After lunch, we walk through the village along a roadway to the Moosfluh cable car to reach 2333m. As we ascend we can pick out ski lifts and runs leading into upper-alpine villages. Amazing - what caused these people to settle in these areas in the first place.... We find ourselves on the ridge of the mountain overlooking the Aletsch Glacier. We are awestruck at the enormity of the glacier, flowing from the back of Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch.
We take pictures atop of the ridge and enjoy the view. M’s mum is uneasy about the heights and didn’t want to hike. M’s knee is still acting up, so he decides that he’ll stay with his mom and accompany her back down on the cable car and tram while Mark A, Sherry, J and T trek across the ridge for about an hour to reach the lift, Hohfluh at 2227m to return back down to the valley. After the hiking group leave, M and Ruby find a nearby bench (one where Ruby was far away from the drop-off) and just sat and enjoyed the view. As well as the Aletsch Glacier, which looks like a flowing ice river, there were 8 other glaciers easy to view. Then the wind picked up so we thought we would descend to the area where we had lunched to continue to walk and chat and just enjoy this awesome part of Switzerland. They made their way back to the gondola, waiting on another bench facing the other side of the valley for a few minutes until it arrived, then slowly walked back up from Morel to the apartment.
As for the hiking group, they enjoyed the hike and as they approached the Hohfluh lift, was the Matterhorn in the distance. Everyone enjoyed the splendor of the glacial valley and the surrounding peaks along a well-marked path. Occasionally they came across cattle grazing at this elevation. Clouds were moving quickly by the peak and just before boarding the quad ski lift back down to Mitten. They switch lifts to descend to a town called Reid-Morel where they walk around abit. They could see this village from the apartment down below and were curious to see what it was like. They boarded the gondola and arrived back in Morel. None were looking forward to the uphill climb to our place in Breiten about 150 m higher. We stopped at the bakery at the bottom of the hill to get some rolls and get J a strawberry custard tart, something that he has come to acquire a taste for, and then trudge up the trail to reach the apartment.
August 7 – Sunday – Ruby and Sherry had both read some books that were set in the Interlaken area of Switzerland. So today is our day to drive over there and take in the views on the way. Our drive takes up the valley from Morel and then up the Grimsel Pass (a serious set of switchbacks up to the top of the pass), and then down the other side.
We saw some thoroughly enjoyable scenery although ‘heights-challenged’ folks might not easily agree. The landscape is rugged with lots of rocks, waterfalls, grass-covered mountainsides and glacial silt coloured lakes, a few were dammed to capitalize on the energy. Once down in the valley, there is farming and some industry.
Once we are in Interlaken, we stop for lunch and do some people watching. This city is a busy tourist spot for people who travel up to Jungfrau (the area of Switzerland where we had spent time in June in Wengen). The streets are busy with tourists, we see paragliders landing in a field across from where we were eating lunch. After a delicious lunch and a stop at a chocolatier, we climb back into the van to continue back to Breiten. We decide to take the same route south as we had taken in June when we left Wengen - this way our guests can see another part of Switzerland. We drove by Thun, Bern (the capital of Switzerland), down through the farming region of Fribourg, and Gruyere (yes, we did stop to buy some cheese), continuing down through the valley along the eastern edge of Lake Geneva through some major vineyards past Montreau and then on to Brig. We had hoped to stop at a grocery store to find some protein to go with the other things we already had in the fridge, however, we find that all stores are closed on Sundays, so we are out of luck. We will have to make due with what we have!
August 8 - Monday
Our final morning is spent eating breakfast, packing suitcases and loading up the van. We leave Breiten, and Morel to head east up the valley en route to our next town, Klosters, located near Davos in the eastern Swiss Alps. The drive took us along the valley as we had yesterday but turning right (instead of heading to the Grimsel Pass) steadily climbing out of the valley through the Furka Pass. Again we drove through some serious switchback roads the likes that we hadn’t seen before as we climbed into the high Alps.
The views were spectacular and we marvel at the network of hiking trails that branch off from the roads. The roadway through the pass is fairly narrow and the curbing along the edge of the road was a cause for discussion. Sometimes we saw concrete blocks about a foot high spaced out, about a half car width apart, narrow metal posts, or wood fencing along the road which has very steep enbankments below. This made for some very nervous moments for some of our guests. One thing about the roadways – they are very windy with incredible switchbacks, so one can’t travel fast. It was interesting watching the tourist buses negotiate some of the switchback curbs. At times on-coming vehicles had to back up.
We did enjoy the view from the top of the pass into the lush green valley.
We did drive through another pass, Oberalp, again affording us wonderful views of villages below and looking back across the valley we could see the switchback route we had taken.
We stopped in Ilanz for a bite to eat – and we definitely find that we are in German speaking Switzerland! We do manage to decipher words on the menu enough to find something that suits each of us. Since there is a grocery store near by, we pick up groceries for the next few days as time is going by and we don’t know what time the local shops are open.
About 40 min later, we arrive in Klosters in the pouring rain. This town is very close to Davos and it appears it has many apartment/condo buildings servicing the skiing industry as well as summer hikers. We head to the office in the town to pick up the keys for the apartment. Once we pick up the keys, we head out for approximately 5 minutes to find the condo building which has our 3-bdrm apt. We are very pleased with the amount of room that we have and it is well equipped. We’ll enjoy it here!
