Zermatt, Switzerland

Our favorite vacation so far has been Zermatt! It's a tiny, ski town in the Alps, and it's most popular for being at the base of the Matterhorn.

Here's a picture Bri took of Zermatt while we were snowboarding.

We stayed in a small hotel, seen in the middle of the picture below, just behind the little wooden shacks.

We enjoyed the hotel for a couple of reasons: 1) Our room had a great balcony with an excellent view and 2) The breakfast in the morning was delicious, and the breakfast room was very cool. It had huge windows where you could watch the sun rise.

This was our view when we opened the curtains every morning. Doesn't it just make you want to go snowboarding?? I loved how the sunrise made the Matterhorn turn pink.

The first three days we were there, we snowboarded all day and then enjoyed the town in the evening. The snow could have been better, but we had great weather. As a Texan used to Colorado skiing and snowboarding, I was thankful for the weather : ) One really cool thing about Zermatt was how most of the lifts were nice gondolas or cable cars! It was nice to be out of the wind while you were on your way up the mountain. Even the chair lifts had these cool bubble things that you could pull over your head to protect you from the wind!

One of my favorite runs that we did started from the highest point you can ski from in Europe. They had an observation deck at the top that gave you a breathtaking view of the Alps. Check it out!!

I swear Brian didn't cut and paste me into this picture

Glaciers!! Enjoying the view!

Creating a slight breach of etiquette, I triple-dog-dared Brian to put his eye up to that frozen lookout thing (you know, from the movie The Christmas Story? - love this video)

So this was the beginning of that run from the top of the mountain. The view was so awesome, I literally stopped snowboarding just to look around every 200 yards. In this picture, I think those little yellow flags say something about crevices. I don't think that little rope would save me if I snowboarded over the edge - yikes!

So on our way down from the very top, we didn't realize that we could ski into Italy. Whoops. It was a gorgeous run, and we were so preoccupied with it that we didn't realize how we stopped seeing people for awhile. When we started to get close to the base of the mountain, we saw a town that definitely was not Zermatt. And our lift passes were only good in Switzerland - not Italy. Whoops. We had to buy a one-time Italy lift pass to get back to the right country - I guess suckers like us make this mistake a lot! Here we are with our passes!

Second time's a charm - back in Switzerland, hooray! They didn't have a sign like this when we entered Italy, although it would have been useful!

The view from the gondolas was awesome - every ride was like a scenic tour of the Alps.
And the way those cable cars worked was incredible! Look at the climb this one makes - it looks like we came out of the clouds or something!
On our way down the mountain, we made a couple of cool discoveries! For example, there was an igloo hotel where people were hanging out and drinking.
The inside of the igloo was freakin' cool! There was a bar made of ice, and booths built from snow!

Another time, we were snowboarding along...

And we found puppies! With a whiskey barrel! And the Matterhorn! Their names were Mini and Nana, and they were SO cute! I think we played with them on the mountain for at least 15 minutes. The one on the right was only 5 months old! She's gonna be a big girl!
The nights in Zermatt were so fun. After snowboarding, it was nice to come back to the hotel to clean up, enjoy happy hour in our room, and then walk the sidewalks of the city. Even though it was quite cold, the city looked really warm when it was all lit up at night.
After a full day of snowboarding, going to a bar on the mountain was always a good choice! This one had a really great view.

I love this town!

Another night we enjoyed some DELICIOUS fondu! We couldn't decide if we wanted cheese or meat fondu - soooo...we got both. One night, we explored our hotel and found this really cool wine cellar!
On our last full day in Switzerland, we decided to go on a hike. As we were walking along a beautiful trail on the mountain, Brian found a smaller (more snowcovered) trail that led down into a ravine. The trail was so cool because it had a lot of snowy bridges that had beautiful views. It was kind of funny though - we saw part of this trail from one of the gondolas when we were snowboarding on a previous day, and it looked SO rickety. I had pointed it out to Brian and said, "That looks SO scary!" And then...there we were...haha! Bri is great - he's so patient with me and helps me expand my risk boundaries.

The steps leading down into the ravine. Bri cleared them off for me on his way down - thanks, B!

If you enlarge the picture below, you can really see the wooden trail winding along the left side of the rock wall.

This part was kind of scary because there were holes in the wood! Yikes!

At the end of the hike, we walked on top of the river. I had never experienced walking on ice and hearing a rushing river flowing below me! Very cool.

Ice fishing, anyone?

The next day, our train ride home was gorgeous. We rode through many Swiss towns that were on lakes like this one.
We had a great time in Zermatt - I'd really love to go back again for snowboarding or to see it during summertime!