We started in Chamonix, a touristy alpine village brimming with restaurants, cafés, shops, stylish hotels, old-fashioned auberges, and plenty of things to do. Chamonix has been a world-renowned ski resort ever since the Winter Olympics of 1924 were held here. After arriving late in the afternoon and checking out the view from our hotel room, we headed in to the village for dinner (and of course ice cream).
Exploring the little village the next morning brought great excitement for everyone. As it was mostly pedestrian and in relatively low season, we had much of the streets to ourselves which allowed the girls to roam and window shop to their hearts desire.
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| I never knew I needed 3kg of honey, until today |
Every which way we turned, however, we had amazing views of the Mont Blanc. Soaring to an altitude of 4,810 meters (15,780ft), Mont Blanc is always covered in snow, explaining why it's called the "White Mountain."
The fall colors were also showing off for us throughout town.
After a busy day exploring, a hot chocolate and ice cream at a cafe with a view of Mont Blanc really it the spot.
The next morning we got up and headed just outside of the town to an amusement park with an alpine coaster. Many of the ones in Switzerland are only open to kids 4+ so we haven't had the opportunity to ride. This one had a 3 year old age limit so we quickly put it on our list of things to do. With a 1,300m (0.81 miles) long rail track featuring jumps, turns, and 540° spins, we were not disappointed. Well, except for the fact that I only bought the 6 pack of tickets so we could each only go 3 times. The girls would have done it all day, I'm certain.
To balance the excitement, we then took the afternoon to visit a geological museum. I have taken the 63 photos of rocks and condensed them into some sort of viewable form (as well as narrowed it down to the 32 "best" pictures of rocks). Adam claims he showed restraint in the picture taking of rocks as there are over 1900 on display and he only took 55 of the 63 photos. While I'll admit several of them were pretty, I just can't get enthused by rock, even if every member of my family now corrects me to say they were crystals not rocks every time I make this statement.
We headed back to our hotel and discovered these gems (see my rock reference there!) in the kids area which brought out Adam's inner 80's kid.
We left Chamonix the next morning and headed to Zermatt. The town of Zermatt bans cars within the town limits and brags that its streets are traffic-free (the larger-than-golf-cart-electric-cars from every hotel in town apparently don't count as traffic). We parked in Tasch, the city before Zermatt, who I'm pretty sure would not be on the map except for the fact that it has the largest parking garage on the planet. The train ride up to Zermatt from Tasch was quick & easy.
We checked into our hotel then headed up Gornergrat Top Station via cogwheel-train (first installed in 1899, but as with all things Swiss, the engineering is top notch so it feels like it started yesterday). The train ride is about 40 minutes. Literally as we ascended, we watched the clouds roll in.
Until we reached the top and the Matterhorn, the main attraction, the entire reason we came to Zermatt, was completely hidden by clouds.
Trying to make lemonade out of the situation, we walked around the summit station for an hour or so to see if it would clear up.
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| The view in the opposite direction of the Matterhorn |
It did not.
So I fixed it.
We walked out to Riffee that is the view that every TI picture contains :
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| not my photo |
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| my photo |
At this point, we were a bit cold
so we gave up and called it a day.
The next morning, we woke up to find that the weather had not improved, rather it decided to go from just a little cloudy with sprinkles off & on to a full on storm. We walked around the town a little by hopping from shop awning to shop awning to avoid the monsoon that was building.
The best view we had of the Matterhorn all weekend.
I'm sad we didn't get to see the Matterhorn, but I have added it to the list of places Adam has to take me back to - right next to the Grand Canyon which I also haven't seen due to clouds.
We took the train back down to our car then started our 4 hour drive home -- through the rain.
About half way through, we had one last adventure to cap our trip. We took a car/train/tunnel. I don't even really know what to call it. You drive on, put your car in park, then are whisked away in a tunnel at quite a speed.
These first two pictures are not mine, but show you the train itself.
Here's our view from the inside:
The ride is about 35 minutes. Though exciting at first, it quickly turns a bit dull as you're in pitch black and can't move anywhere. At which point, the driver decided to bust out his book. Insert eye roll emoji here.
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