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Prev :: Saturday, 24 September 2005 :: Next
23. Zermatt, Martigny, Chamonix
Photo Gallery
This morning I was tempted to join my friend for a hike at the Sunnegga and Rothorn paradises, but instead I decided to go all the way up the Klein Matterhorn and do some skiing! There is actually a pretty impressively large ski area open year-round on top of the glacier at close to 4000m. The snow wasn't great, but I've skied on much worse in the middle of the winter at Tahoe. It's only intermediate stuff, but I did find a nice big untracked area — a storm had dumped a few cm a couple of days earlier, and the temperature and sun elevation are so low up here that it doesn't even get crusty. It was quite cold; I don't think it even got above freezing while I was skiing. Fortunately the ski rental place at the base of the mountain also rented gloves. I'd never imagined skiing in the Northern Hemisphere in September! The latest I'd skied before was July 4, after a season (1994-1995) in which Squaw Valley got over 20m of snow — I think they stayed open on weekends until August, but not September. Zermatt must be fantastic in the winter; I'd love to come back, although I get the impression that the lift lines would be pretty horrible — they weren't uncrowded, even now in what must be the farthest off-season time of year. Many of the skiers look to be the Swiss ski team keeping up their moves in their (extremely attractive) tight blue ski suits.
The ski area closes around 14:00 at this time of year, so the fact that my train left at 14:30 didn't mean that I wasted much of the lift ticket. You can change at Visp, but remember to walk over to the other train station! I forgot about this, and dashed back onto the train when I couldn't find my departure for Martigny listed. So I was able to make the transfer further down at Brig, but with only seconds to spare — a little too close for comfort.
The ride to Martigny was beautiful, warm and sunny. Here I had about 45 minutes to wait, so I wandered around the town. I've now crossed into French-speaking territory; it's so interesting that the Swiss actually seem to co-exist as a single nation. Just as I was crossing one of the main intersections, a giant herd of cows was shepherded down the street! This looked very odd as the place is by no means a tiny village. At the center of the square was also a statue of a bull, anatomically complete and sitting up as if it were human. I bought a box of chocolates here at Leonidas. This wasn't as good nor as cheap as Bruges had been, but I was determined to have some more chocolate before I left Switzerland (except Leonidas is not even Swiss, oops)! Mostly in Swiss shops I had seen Toblerone and Lindt, which I hardly ever bought, because not only are they widely available back home, they're also cheaper at home!
Now I was getting into some very good stuff. I got on the Mont Blanc express, a terribly cute little train which goes up the mountain to the border and down into the Chamonix valley of France. I think the more pointless something seems, the more enjoyable it is — and this train did seem quite pointless as it had maybe two other people on it. But it's also spectacular, winding up extremely steep forested mountain slopes. And the Eurail pass even covers it completely! At the border, the train was temporarily replaced by a bus for the rest of the ride. For some reason I like trains very much more, although in this case the view from the bus was slightly better as the road paralleled the tracks but slightly higher up the ridge. This section has stunning views of Mont Blanc, but the bus doesn't stop so that you can take pictures, and the light was beginning to fade into evening, so I got a few rather blurry ones.
Chamonix is at the end of the line, and I arrived around 19:30. After Switzerland, France is so wonderfully cheap! I checked into the Hotel Touring for two nights at only €30. It's a good location and I got a big room; the place was pretty much deserted as it was so far off season. It seems to be run by expat Brits (including one very cute one when I checked in). I opted out of the breakfast, which proved to be a good move as an unbelievably good pastry shop was just round the corner to the west of the hotel.
I had pizza for dinner and noticed that the town was oddly full of college-age French kids, who generally seem much more handsome than the Swiss for some reason, to my eyes at least. Chamonix is right in the middle of a deep valley, which basically rises straight up to the 4800m massif of Mont Blanc, and the view up to the glaciers immediately above as the sun was setting was wonderful. You can see why they have a bit of a problem with landslides and avalanches here.