We had breakfast of the usual sort (and by this time, we were actual getting sick of so much cheese - Brad was missing his typical oatmeal and Suzanne her peanut butter) and decided what to do today. It is about a 12 mile hike/walk from St. Niklaus to Zermatt, much of it along the road and train tracks. We finally decided to take the train to the town of Tasch and then walk/hike the final four miles into Zermatt.
So while waiting for the 11:11am train, we ran into a group of five Israelis (one women and four men) that we had seen at the Cabane, then again in Gruben at the Hotel Schwartzhorn, and chatted with the previous night at the Hotel in St. Niklaus. (Well, we actually chatted with the one who was either the most friendly, most social, or knew the most English.) We were actually surprised to see them so late in the day, as they were taking an alternate route and would/should have been on the trail by this time. Come to find out that one of the guys woke with a broken tooth, so the English-speaking guy spoke with the hotel owner (Peter) who called his dentist in Sion (about an hour away by car), who agreed to go to the office on a Sunday (keep in mind that Switzerland is a Catholic country and many businesses are closed on Sundays) and pull the tooth. Peter let the Israels take his car - not drive them, but take the car - and lent them cash for the dentist. A few hours later, they were back and ready to hit the trail. Like we said, these Swiss are damn nice!
Here is Suzanne waiting for the train......
(This is the trail that we would have hiked - boring and literally next to the train/road much of the time.)
However there still were a few good views. These pictures we took from the train..........
We arrived in Tasch and looked for a place to have some lunch, and enjoyed some really good kabobs and French fries at Charisma. Oh, and their bathroom signs were interesting as well..........
....arriving in Zermatt at 2pm.
After being in so many smaller towns/villages/hamlets, this place felt like a major city! Oh, super cool that there are no cars in Zermatt, so people either walked, took electric-cart taxis/transportation, biked, etc...
We found our hotel - Hotel Continental (which we reserved months before we every left for the trip) - and were reunited with our clothes sent from Chamonix (the "cute clothes" 😜).
We then began to work through our big pile of dirty clothes (a multi-stage process: wash/rinse in sink; wring in bath towel, dry on line strung on balcony, then move inside to dry on big radiator (and any other surface) for Stage 2 drying while newly washed clothes are put on the balcony's drying line) and after we showered it felt great to wear "real clothes" and not the same clothes we wore for ten days.)
We went to the Visitor's Center to get an idea of things to do in Zermatt for a couple days and got some more Swiss chocolate to continue our brand-comparison testing - it was an important part of our chocolate-research!
We decided to celebrate by having fondue at a restaurant called Whymper - much like the rosti, the bread/potato/cheese combo got boring after the first couple of bites. It was pretty expensive too. We wandered around Zermatt some more and worked our way back to the hotel where more laundry was waiting.
Today’s numbers:
Miles
|
Elevation
change
|
|
Tasch to Path
|
1.4
|
380
|
Path to Hotel
Continental
|
2.2
|
223
|
3.6
|
603
|
Today's
Word
Today's Word: Finale.
Our total: 53.1 miles of hiking and 32,618 feet of elevation change. As we mentioned before, the miles don't tell the whole story - the terrain was rough and steep - and that was unexpected. It's one thing to hike in steep sections when it's dirt underfoot, but these rocks were tough.
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