Zermatt 4

Day 5 Hike 4

We were really planning on a nice easy day today, we had signed up for a fondue night that afternoon, so we made a plan to walk to the next town along the rail line trail, which looked flat - right next to the rail line (it wasn't, a challenge in Switzerland is that things can seem right close to the river or train line but actually be 200 m above these things and it's not obvious on the map, there are no flat trails you are going straight up or straight down a mountain at all times this was the closest we got though) and not too challenging (which it wasn't but that just meant we walked two towns over instead of one).  

So we walked out. The exciting sights of this were

1. So in a place this hilly some of how they ship goods is by helecopter no joke-- how else do you ge the beer to the top of the mountain where of course there's an alpine restaurant hut. So as we walked we got to see this helecopter make a couple of laden and unladen trips.

2. We passed like 3 quite good waterfalls. So there's a lot of water around, alpine springs and rivers, snow melt and so you can run into a steep and impressive waterfall all the time. 

3. The trail kind of followed the river which I did like.

4. We cut across the river over a historical covered bridge! I didn't realize those were a thing here. It was especially charming with the loud rushing and roaring of the river around you. 

We had intended to go on a little forest loop but from what my limited German and the pictographs on the signs could say it was closed due to them blasting rocks in the area so maybe avalanches can happen? We definitely passed some quarry areas and a rock processing facility. 

So we took this trail to two towns over where there was another alpine lake I wanted to see. This one had a reggae bar and a jet ski training school. Why Switzerland? Note: please learn what a gorgeous alpine lake is for. And took the train back home, in time to rest and shower for our fondue dinner. 

Which was actually really special. Our hotellier made his own fondue so lots of herbs and wine and shaved garlic mixed in, and poured wine and eventually schnapps down our throats all night. There were three couples one speaking English (us) one German and one French/ Swiss dialect so we had a good rollicking conversation in pidgin between us cause everyone spoke two languages (minimum) so different combinations of people were chatting in different overlap languages. We got good and drunk and eventually the party broke up and we passed out.