An Unbelievable End to a Storied Trip in the Swiss Alps
Having been very impressed with Lucerne, we were very excited to see what other delightful landscapes Switzerland had to offer. Of course, this meant making it out to the magnificent Swiss Alps sooner or later. So the next four days were a mix of trains, snow, resort towns, and mountain peaks. Spoiler alert: this part of our adventure was extraordinary!
Zermatt
Named one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world, Zermatt does not allow outside cars and is intended to be a pedestrian-only town. This made the streets a bit more quaint and quite comfortable to walk around. We arrived by train from Lucerne in late afternoon after winding through many changes of scenery until we finally found snow and mountains!
The point of our time here was to climb the Gornergrat mountain and maybe even do some skiing. In fact, taking the train to the 10,000 foot peak of the Gornergrat is a must-do if you are in the area as it offers splendid views of the majestic Matterhorn peak, which is distinct in shape. In fact, the mountain peak on the Toblerone bar is an image of the Matterhorn.
Our ascent was quite fun as we climbed the mountain in the local train and then we split up once we reached the peak so that I could spend the day skiing. I tried my best not to fall off the mountain while Juliette took plenty of awesome photos. As you can see from the pictures, this place is pretty close to paradise!
After about three hours of skiing in beautiful powder, I met back up with Juliette and we trained back to the base for lunch at our new favorite spot, the Brown Cow Pub. We split up again that afternoon so that I could continue skiing and Juliette could explore the town. Even though this wasn’t the most activity-packed destination for us, the journey and then the walking around were our favorite parts just to be in awe of the amazingness surrounding us.
The Glacier Express
I’m sure you’ve caught on now that training around is one of our favorite ways to travel. Thus, we would never miss an opportunity to travel from point A to point B via a scenic train. The panoramic Glacier Express train would be our vehicle from Zermatt to the fabled town of St. Moritz, our last official stop on our world tour.
We checked out early from our hotel the following morning and were instantly greeted by some of the most wonderful snowfall we’ve ever seen! The streets were quiet and not yet clattering with skiers, and we could leave footprints that would fill with new snowfall before they were disturbed by others. Ten minutes later, we arrived by foot at the train station, each with a quarter inch layer of white coating our hats, jackets, and bags!
Now one of the best parts of the Glacier Express is the huge windows on each side. Obviously, this made for some excellent photo taking along the way. We also lucked out and got an area all to ourselves and had ample room to stretch out a bit. This made for a very comfortable 8-hour ride.
One of our highlights was having a fine-dining style lunch onboard (which was a first for this trip)! Being in such snowy weather had us craving heat and spice so we opted for some delicious curries that came served with bread and salad. We may or may not have napped for a few minutes after! But I can’t help but reflect on how beautiful this journey was. We moved through the blizzard-y area of Zermatt through forests, towns, and countryside, each with a distinct character, mountainous backdrop, and stunning coat of white snow. Seriously, we can’t recommend this train trip enough!
St. Moritz
The Glacier Express pulled into our last [official] destination of the trip late in the afternoon. It was a shame that our stay would be so short-lived as we were there only one night, but we can honestly say that this was a fitting and VERY classy way to end our trip. The reason this was an idyllic destination in the first place (and worth the effort for one night) was due to the storied history of St. Moritz. It’s often labeled as the place where jet setters go to ski and vacation, and that was immediately apparent. St. Moritz has also hosted two winter Olympics in 1928 and again in 1948, as well as been the backdrop of many films, including scenes from several James Bond movies. Last, but certainly not least, St. Moritz is actually credited as the place where the idea of winter vacation was born. How cool is that?
We checked into the charming Hotel Waldhaus am See, which is perched right on the edge of the lake after taking the long way to get there (in typical Prado fashion) from the train station. Even though the place is in a beautiful location, the walk into town for dinner took about 15 minutes through parking lot tunnels and up quite a few escalators. But instantly we knew we were in a special place.
Because we arrived on a Monday, the area seemed to be pretty deserted, which made us feel as if the town were ours! After a bit of walking we opted for dinner at the Hauser Restaurant and Bakery for a celebratory burger and ravioli.
Then the real celebration started! To commemorate our trip, we capped off the night back at the hotel in the world’s most extensive whisky bar with over 2,200 whiskies! To be fair, this was another key reason for staying in the hotel in addition to its location. 😉
Checkout the next morning was pretty bittersweet until we remembered that we still had ~4 hours until our train to Tirano. I think this turned into some of the most productive time we spent on the trip. We made our way to leaning tower of St. Moritz, which has a pretty funny story. Apparently, the government keeps trying to knock it down but the townspeople are too fond of it. So, they’ve been fighting to keep it standing for years!
A bit further down the road, we stumbled upon the Olympic facilities. It’s incredible to see these up close against the stunning backdrops and imagine yourself attending almost a century ago.
Other notable stops on our self-prescribed walking tour were at the Laderach Chocolate Shop and at the Berry Museum, which we quickly found out was dedicated to Dr. Berry and not the tiny delicious fruits. I’m pretty sure we dragged our feet back to the train station knowing that the Swiss Alps would soon be behind us but we couldn’t have been more grateful to have spent a day here. What a classy ending to an incredible time!
-GP