This year, the goal was to visit many medieval castles on the way to Zermatt. The first destination was Gruyère, where the famous Swiss cheese comes from. On top of the hill as a part of the old part of town is the HR. Giger museum and the HR Giger bar, both are quite an experience if you want to know what aliens are.
Taking the rental car and drive up to Grimentz must be a challenge for anyone who didn't grow up in the side valley. The streets are narrow and very windy with normal dump trucks, that hug the road as if the tires like staring down the embankment. We finally arrived at a village that is mostly still preserved and consists of wooden construction with a sun burned façade. Very quaint.
Our dinner was great with local specialties.
On the next day, we drove up to Zermatt, which is free of cars (nice!). Most people come here for hiking anyway and so it doesn't matter if you walk to the hotel from the train station. We were lucky and stayed in a hotel that had a very nice view of the Matterhorn. I truly was impressed with this mountain of all mountain. It is a peak that stands out with its famous bend and it looks stunning especially in the morning when there are no clouds.
A cable car took us up to the Little Matterhorn (3883m or 12740 feet), which is the highest place in Europe that can be reached with an aerial tram. From there you have an unobstructed view to the "real" Matterhorn and other 4000m high peaks.
The Gornergrat is our next site from where one can observe some of the highest peaks in the Alps. A cog railway leads up to the station on top of a ridge. The entire massif of Monte Rosa is in front of you and I cannot stress enough how impressive this is.
Because it was such a beautiful day, we decided to hike down to the next station Riffelberg, where we hopped on the train down to Zermatt.
