A love letter to Zermatt
Before I receive my credit card statement.
Isn’t it ironic. I start a travel blog, or at the very least, I’ve started writing online using travel as a tangential theme, and I no longer want to move. Summer was spent in both countries I call home. I’ve been turning down work trips. I had a chance to jump on a plane this week and chose the train instead, chose a staycation that is double the cost.
I’m still on brand because I’m alone. But I’ve not gone far, leaning into the Swiss side of my personality and forensically checking a weather app every three hours. I am riveted to cloud patterns bouncing across my phone like those early Desktop screensavers. What’s unusual for November is that there aren’t many. That’s mainly why I’m here.
Zermatt is Disneyland for grown-ups. A car-free playground of ski slopes and hiking trails. For those less active, trains and lifts bring you up to enjoy views that no adjective, no picture can ever encapsulate. There are great restaurants and fancy spa hotels. And in season, a bouncing nightlife which is accessible, because you’ll never feel the oldest nor youngest in a bar. Similarly to Disneyland, it also comes with a hefty price tag.
It was winter when I first came. Steffi and I skied over to Italy and back for a cappuccino, and then we did the same for lunch. We admired the Matterhorn in all her majesty, looking even more royal behind a plate of cheese and carbs. We felt the ache in our thighs when we danced on the slopes, drinking too many shots of Berliner Luft which is Listerine without the burn. We skipped the table we booked for dinner and ended up in McDonald’s in our ski shoes instead.
The following mornings, all traces of a hangover were blasted away. I used snow to rub off the curry sauce on my salopettes. Exertion, speed and sun cured all and some more, scrubbing out my brain between the crevices. Steffi and I could be anywhere together to remind ourselves that life is not all that serious, that there’s always fun to be had. Yet on one of the highest points of Europe this was extra special. We played extra hard. Â
This time has been much less rowdy. It’s shoulder season, where only couples and the 70+ take advantage of cheaper hotel rates whilst many things are closed. There are no shots to down, just steps to walk. The swish of my trousers, the sound of my breath. Golden trees clinging on to this glorious autumn sun that guide my path. Saunas to clamber in later that soothe my aching limbs.
I’ve walked 16 hours in the past three days, chasing lakes that reflect the iconic peak at all angles. I’ve ascended and descended 2470m without hardly meeting a soul, totalling 46.4km of one foot in front of the other. I found a silence so silent, so eerie, it was terrifying and beautiful all at once. I had to tell myself that my stiff legs were going to bring me down, that I was not going to be consumed alone by the magnitude.
It’s obvious to state, but travel is not always restful. Hiking isn’t either, but at least for me, it rests the spirit. Forget Europe’s spires and cathedrals, I wanted to go to my own church. To the peaks that give me transcendence, that I set my hopes and prayers against. To a landscape that reassures me that there is something so much bigger than this, something so much wiser us. I descend from these heights purified. Baptised again.
This literal chocolate box town is my favourite place in the world. In an unstable one, it’s important to have somewhere. To lick your wounds. To fill you with wonder. To make you climb out of our swirl of humanity, a news cycle, your inbox. To remind you how astonishing it is to be here.
I am exhausted and exhilarated. Heartbroken and heartfixed. Let’s see if I can even walk tomorrow. Â
The video above includes a tiny church at 2583m. I really did rinse that metaphor.
Your subtitle made me die laughing. Also that photo in the middle with the lake is INCREDIBLE.