We’re going a long way back today. This is from my year abroad, when I was studying French at the University of Neuchâtel. I spent every free minute exploring Switzerland and our day in Zermatt was one of my favourite adventures.
It was the depths of winter. In fact, it was November 26th 2005. In a way, of course, that’s a perfect day to go down to a beautiful winter ski resort. On the other hand, none of us were equipped for particularly cold weather. Getting to Zermatt from Neuchâtel is that unusual thing; a journey that’s not terribly easy by public transport. The plan was to get the 7.34am train but Angela wanted to sleep in and get the 9.34am train which wouldn’t get us there until half past one. I’d got up at 6am to be ready for the early train, so I wasn’t delighted to be told at 7.30 when I should have been on the platform and actively looking for the train that one of the group had decided to be two hours late. This is why I travel alone now.
We compromised on the 8.34 train. Change at Lausanne, change at Visp (where I apparently lost my gloves on a detour to McDonald’s which cost us another train) and finally, well over three hours later, we reached the top of the steep valley and the delightful car-free village of Zermatt, overlooked by the pyramidal Matterhorn.
I knew Zermatt was car-free but the fleet of golf buggies was a surprise. In hindsight, this is one of the playgrounds of the rich and famous; of course they’re not going to be carrying their own luggage around the village. And of course we stopped to play with one. Not to take it for a drive but Jemma and Angela posed in it while we walked down towards the river in the hope of getting a good view of the Matterhorn and finding the gondola station.
This is possibly my favourite picture from Switzerland. I had it printed on transparency and stuck on my window. I probably still have it somewhere but it’ll be in a box of leftover Switzerland scraps and souvenirs and I have no idea where that would be. It’s just such a great picture. That mountain, slightly silhouetted, so spiky, so prominent, the lens flare – *chef’s kiss*.
Once we’d had a look at the village, we naturally wanted to take a cable car up one of the mountains. There was a board up by the ticket office, detailing weather conditions at each station and we soon realised we were woefully underdressed for going up a mountain in winter – the ice palace at the top was -21C. We settled on the Schwarzee stop at a mere -9C, high enough to feel like we’d gone up a mountain but low enough to survive ten or twenty minutes.
We managed about ten. It was bitterly cold and we, simple students, just did not own clothes for serious weather, although my diary says I bought some of those disposable chemical handwarmers and was hugely grateful for them. The photos suggest I was wearing black cords, my long wool coat from New Look and I suspect nothing more underneath than a t-shirt and a crew neck fleece jumper. Fine for a Swiss winter in the city but not for -9 plus windchill up a mountain. It was scenic but it was also November and by mid-afternoon, the sun was low enough to blind me, even with my first ever polarised sunglasses, purchased from the shop next to the gondola station half an hour ago, and to interfere with the few photos I took. What a glorious day that was – more than fourteen years later and I still wouldn’t ever consider wearing non-polarised sunglasses ever again.
We descended and found a restaurant to sample our first and only real Swiss fondue. I wasn’t expecting it to come with its own little gas burner to keep it melted at the table. Dipping the bread was harder than I anticipated and there was something about the taste of the cheese I didn’t particularly like. We also warmed up with vodka (Angela), brandy (Jemma)and hot chocolate (me).
From then on, it was all drinking. We went into the station cafe for a drink while we waited for the last train of the night, which was disappointingly un-scenic because by then it had been dark for quite some time. Instead of getting the train straight back from Lausanne, we popped into our favourite… I’m not sure what it was and I know I’d never be able to find it again. Arcade, probably. We used to drop in whenever we were in Lausanne for a game of “who can throw the most basketballs through the hoop in the given time” and possibly to play Street Fighter, the one game I’ve ever had any talent for. Anyway, this evening we stopped off for drinks and games (basketball, air hockey and shooting, says my diary) on our way back, ran away from some creepy men who were hassling us for phone numbers and missed the 10.45 train by, presumably, quite a bit since my diary says we ran away from the arcade “five minutes before the 10.45 train left”.
With no desire to miss the last train of the day and be stranded in Lausanne overnight, we plonked ourselves down on the platform with snacks and beer. I think that last train must have got us home well after midnight and I think this was the ride we spent trying to induct Angela into the wonders of the Scissor Sisters using one of the very earliest mp3-capable mobile phones.
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I blog every Monday and Thursday – Monday’s blog is going even further back, back to school to my Duke of Edinburgh Award Bronze expedition so come back to see how seventeen-year-old me coped with two days of hiking across the wilds of Purbeck.