Gornergrat Railway and Downhill Hike 戈尔内格拉特铁路

May 31, 2022

We took a morning walk along the lake one last time and captured a few more pictures before going to the same bakery place to have coffee and pastries. After breakfast, we said goodbye to Montreux and got on the IR 90 train heading to Zermatt, a part of the Classic Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. We arrived at Zermatt before noon. Zermatt is a car-free resort town. The majority of the buildings are either hotels or restaurants. The winter is the busiest season. Since we were there when the summer season just started, only 20% of the hotels were open, and many restaurants had not opened for the summer yet. Although the town is car-free, taxi by electric vehicles is available for the tourists to get to their hotels up the hills. Our hotel was a short distance from the train station, so we dragged our luggage to the hotel. Luckily, our room was ready for us before normal check-in time. After settling in the room, we headed out to start a new adventure.

Grabbing some sandwiches for lunch at a nearby bakery, we boarded the Gornergrat Railway to the summit of the Gornergrat. The cogwheel railway is the second highest railway in Europe after the Jungfrau and the highest open-air railway in Europe. Unfortunately, the cloud started to build up in the afternoon at high altitudes. The Matterhorn was not visible, but we had countless panoramic views of mountains and glaciers as the train pulled up to the summit. After 40 mins of a magnificent ride, we arrived at the summit. The weather was chilly in the early summer at summit, but the view was breathtaking, even with the peaks obcuredtially by clouds. We had our lunch at the summit café. With the hot goulash soup and drinks ordered from the café, the sandwiches we brought tasted pretty good and it was a very good lunch. After lunch break, we toured a small church and enjoyed the views from the overlook deck. We also took some pictures at the Grand Tour Photo Spot, one of 64 spots in the country.

After watching a cogwheel train running up to the station, we knew it was time to leave. We got on the return train back down to Riffelap, a hamlet approximately halfway between the town of Zermatt and the Gornergrat summit. From Riffelap, we hiked four miles back to Zermatt. The trail was scenic, with wide-ranging views of the valley and peaks. It descended steeply and put a lot of pressure on our knees. It was raining a little most of the time, and we were glad we had rain cover with us. We took a break at Chalet Harmonie. The mountain chalet hadn’t opened yet for the summer, and four of us were the only people there. But the whole area was still well maintained. We were astonished to find out that the restroom was open and kept as clean as at the hotel. Nearby were Ricola Herb garden and a small church, both lovely. We wished we could stay a little longer to explore the area more, but we wanted to get back to the town before dark. The hiking was challenging for us, but we enjoyed it very much.