Matterhorn, Zermatt, Raclette, Oh My!

My first day trip alone in Switzerland took me to the little town of Zermatt on the Swiss-Italian border. My only goof along the trip was hopping onto the first class car by mistake when I changed trains, and getting escorted back to second by the conductor. Apparently she didn't trust that I would make it on my own. The train ride itself was gorgeous as we went up into the mountains.

Upon arrival I headed straight for the ticket window for the Gornergrat Glacier. Adrian recommended I take the train up to Gornergrat, from which there is a great view of the Matterhorn, and then hike down to Zermatt. The weather was supposed to be great, and he said it would be a couple hour hike. It had snowed in the alps the week before I arrived, so all of the mountain tops were clothed in white. The sky was deep blue, and some clouds were just beginning to creep around the tip of the Matterhorn. The glacier was vast and breath-taking. I stood at the top of viewing point for a little while, smiling at the tourists having their pictures snapped with St. Bernards with wooden canasters strapped around their necks. I bought a cheese sandwich for a little snack on the way down since it was about 11 AM, but I figured that I could eat lunch once I arrived in Zermatt.

I started down. It was my first time hiking alone. Once I stopped to turn around and look at the glacier behind me, and I was struck by the silence. It was so quiet! As if the air and the ground and the mountains and the glacier were sucking the sound right out of the world. I could hear my own breathing and feel the rhythm of my heartbeat, and I thought about the natural rhythm of the universe and of how out-of-touch I am when I am home going through MY daily rhythm. In that moment I felt very connected to the soul of the world. Profound, yes. But did you see the mountain I was hiking toward?? If there was ever a cause for inspiration, that was it!

I hiked happily down the path. And hiked and hiked. And hiked. 4 HOURS LATER I arrived in Zermatt. I was very tired and hungry, so I stopped at the cafe Rick Steves recommended and had a huge plate of rosti (the hashbrowns). Zermatt itself was a bit disappointing. I had high expectations because we'd actually been here for Christmas when I was just 2 years old, and it had been immortalized as a darling little town. Over the last 20 years it has grown to become a tourist haven without its own character and soul--I did walk around and see the English church, where 20 years before Jennifer and I practiced skiing down the alley.

The next day after a lazy day in Bern, Maria, Fritz, and Adrian's sister Miriam came over to the apartment for dinner. After our cocktails and appetizers we moved into the dining room to start cooking raclette! Normally there's an apparatus where you put a hunk of cheese under a kind of burner. When the top of the cheese is browned the way you want it, you tilt the wheel and scrape the melted cheese onto your plate. As you eat the cheese on your plate, the next bit is heating up for you again. However, we had a different version-- a hot plate with little compartments underneath where we each stuck a slice of cheese in a tray and slid it under. On the top of the hot plate we cooked up chicken, beef, and sausage at the same time. When the cheese was bubbly, we took it out and scraped it over boiled potatoes. Then the whole process starts over. It was delicious and so much fun! All of the Liechti's were trying to instruct me in raclette etiquette at the same time all in a mixture of German, English, and Spanish, so we had to pause and appoint one person as my guide. Miriam showed me the way, and my plate was soon empty!