One of the things I really wanted to see while we were in Europe was snow at Christmas. Pedr was a bit less excited seeing as he’d already had quite a few Christmases in Canada where it can snow as early as October. So we decided to head to Zermatt in the Swiss Alps where there were plenty of nice tall mountains including the mighty Matterhorn.
Zermatt is a great little town that’s car free (apart from the little electric taxis) and surrounded by mountains. When I was first walking around I was looking at all the mountains wondering which one was the Matterhorn. But I recognised it as soon as I saw it. It just sticks straight up another 1000m above the surrounding mountains, there’s no way you can miss it. It’s 4478m high, and it’s also the “Toblerone Mountain”. So if you enjoy triangular chocolates then you’ll recognise it from the packaging.
We stayed for a few days in Zermatt, going for hikes through the forest and through the snow. We did one hike that went up 800m to the Sunnegga ski field. There was a bit of huffing and puffing (definitely the altitude!) but the views along the way were well worth it. From this area you get the best angle to view the Matterhorn.
If you do go hiking up this way you have the walk across the ski area a few times and there were a few places where we were a little too close for comfort to small flailing children who were learning to ski.
Zermatt has Europe’s highest cable car which takes you all the way up to the Little Matterhorn which is 3800m high. This is practically on the border with Italy. You can actually catch the cable car up from the Swiss side, then ski down to Italy on the other side.
While we were there we saw a group climb to the top of the mountain next to us (in the picture above) so that they could ski down it. We also found out that a while ago some crazy guy climbed to the top of the Matterhorn and tried to snowboard down it, but fell off and dropped 700m into deep snow and somehow survived with only a few scratches.
When Christmas Day came around I wasn’t expecting any snow since the forecast had been for clear sunny weather the whole time we were there, but I was very excited to see a light dusting of snow all around the town.
I also discovered the ice rink on Christmas Day so I HAD to go skating after seeing that. Pedr decided not to join me since he was worried he would fall over and break his arm again. I did have to spend some time pushing around a wooden sheep as I relearnt how to skate. It was an outdoor ice rink with no barrier to hang onto! I even had to fight off the small children that kept asking me if they could have my sheep.
The snow didn’t last for too long and by the end of the day it was all gone apart from a few small sad patches, and so we finished off the day by celebrating with a traditional Christmas fondue. Actually, I made that bit up. I’m not sure fondue is the traditional Swiss Christmas dinner option. But it worked for us.
The day after Christmas we took the train up to Gornergrat mountain which has great views of the Gorner Glacier and a very snowy hiking trail you can take down the mountain. We took the lazy route this time; catch the train to the top then walk down, rather than walking up and down like our other hike.
On our hike down we found lots of soft deep snow. It was actually deep enough for me to make snow angels and I spent quite a bit of time kicking and spraying snow everywhere. A little bit like a small child seeing snow for the first time.
I was really happy we (I) finally got to see snow at Christmas and that there was good proper snow too. Although I later found out that we could’ve just gone to Tasmania and got our white Christmas there. But then we would’ve missed out on all the tasty fondue and chocolate.
Anyway, the blog will be a bit quiet for the next couple of months now that we’re back in Australia catching up with everyone. But we’re off again on the 1st of March so there will be more posts of our adventures then. Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!
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