August 30, 2015

I would have to say that Zermatt, Switzerland is definitely near the top of the list for our favorite places so far.  The town was absolutely beautiful, the food was amazing and the view is to die for!  We spent two nights/three days right outside of Zermatt in Taesch (the closest town with camping – but only a 10 minute train ride away).  The ride in from Milan was really great.  As we got closer and closer, the mountains kept getting bigger and Hayden about went crazy when we started to see snow.  🙂

We made it to town and our campsite was only about a 5 minute walk from the train station…super convenient!  It was right next to a river and had a great view of the mountains.  The only downside is that it was pretty cold at night, but we made due.  We did have some really fun neighbors…these crazy mountain goats that were half black/half while and had super long, shaggy hair.  They were pretty hilarious.  I wish I had an audio clip of them bleating…it was SO FUNNY sounding!

The first night, we went to a local restaurant for some fondue (of course – can’t miss the fondue in Switzerland!).  It was amazingly good.  I had the cheese fondue, Adam had the meat and Hayden had the most amazing Mac and Cheese I have ever tasted.  It was macaroni with cream, cheese, bacon, potatoes, and caramelized apples.  I am totally going to try and make it when we get home!

We slept great and slept the next day making our way up to the Matterhorn!  The Matterhorn Express takes you all the way up to almost 4,000 meters high into the mountains.  Just to compare, the Matterhorn is 4,478 meters tall, so we were practically at the top!  The ride up had beautiful views and was nice because it wasn’t crowded, so we had a gondola to ourselves.

We made it to the top after about 45 minutes and HOLY COW…it was stunning!  The pictures don’t even do justice to the amazing views.  It really is like being on top of the world.  We were completely surrounded by mountains and it felt like you were in the sky.  The entire area is covered with snow year round, so there were even a bunch of people skiing.  We spent our time snow tubing, having a couple of good snowball fights and making snow angels.  Hayden was in heaven and certainly didn’t want to ever leave.  We have decided that were are going to start training to be serious hikers so that we can get up into the mountains again and actually be able to walk further than 100 meters without losing our breathes!  lol

Another really different thing are the houses…they are very cute, but the funniest thing is that the roof shingles are just giant pieces of rocks!  We are still trying to figure out how the houses hold up that much weight, but it seems to work!

Despite the scenery and snow, I think the highlight of Hayden’s trip to Switzerland was that he got his very own Swiss Army Knife.  We was SO EXCITED.  He has been asking Adam all day if there is anything that he can open/cut/or otherwise use his knife for.  He has now announced that he is going to do Boy Scouts so that he can use his knife to learn how to carve and to survive in the wilderness.  🙂

I really could have stayed in Switzerland for a few extra days, except that it is a little cold for our summer weight sleeping bags up here in the mountains.  From here, we are taking the train up to Paris and staying for a week up there.  We have an AirBnB apartment, so it will be nice to be out of a tent for a while!