So let us start with last night.
Up to this point we have depended on the hotel to get reservations for us for dinner. This time we thought we would try to find something to walk in to. The town is so beautiful with this river running through it.
Our ski guide had recommended that we check out an Italian restaraunt called Guisseppes. When we got there, we asked for a table for two and the maitre-d flat out said no. Distraught and cold, we walked back towards the main area and stumbled on a pizzeria called Restaurant Da Nico. The place was jam packed but luckily there was room for two at the bar. After our hard day we really just needed a drink. We started with a bottle of Barbera di Alba.
Can you tell how professional of a blog this is based on that great photo? With the wine we had two pizzas, one with mozzeralla di bufala and one with mushrooms and black truffle. The food was fantastic. We ate about 3/4 of the pizza and then we were stuffed.
With full bellies, we walked back towards the hotel to sleep. Our legs were absolutely destroyed from the long day, and we could barely stay awake. While we walked, we snapped a photo of the old area that is right by our hotel.
Once we got back to the room it was about 8:00 PM and we were ready to crash out (at least Dave was).
The next day we woke up late and after eating some breakfast it was time to hit the mountain again.
No rush to get on the hill today as it was pretty windy and we heard that a bunch of the upper mountain was closed due to low visibility. Nevertheless we got on the Matterhorn Glacier gondola which has about 4 or 5 different load on/off points including the top one which is right below the glacier (hence the name). On the way up we got a great shot of the town.
See how socked in it was today? We should have paid the weather more mind because a little bit after taking this photo we were in that cloud cover and it started getting gnarly. So gnarly the automatic sensor kept shutting the gondola off due to the wind. We sat with a very friendly Swiss guide who recommended that we stay low and ski the trees where visibility would be better. Why we didn’t follow him and get off at the third load off spot is a mystery to me. We kept riding until the last stop and wow was it blowing up there! Amazingly they were still running the high tram that goes to the top of the glacier. It would have taken a lot of money to get me to ride that one today. So there we are at the top of the hill and wisely make the decision to stay on piste as visibility was probably about 4 feet? I’m guessing because I couldn’t really see my feet but I could see my hands.
We slowly made our way down to the next gondola stop and jumped on and went in search of a more protected area. This part of the mountain is fairly steep and conditions were not getting any better. From there we started making our way over to the place we had made a lunch reservation. It was on another part of the mountain and we estimated it was about a 2 hour trip including skiing and lift rides (did we mention this is a huge ski resort?!?!) On the way we got a very nice view of the area that we skied off-piste yesterday. This is the area where you see the remnants of an old chairlift that was taken out by an avalanche.
Here is said place nestled in it’s pretty valley at the base of a glacier.
Haha it’s kind of hard to see in this photo but it’s dark brown with bright red shutters! So cute right? The restaurant and chalet is called Fluhalp, named after the glacier that sits right above it. I bet in the summer it’s an awesome place to hike to and hang out. Today everyone was hanging out and taking refuge from the weather by drinking red wine and eating cheese and spaetzle. Like this:
Dave and I shared this and a salad. Also, check out the altitude (for those of you like me who can’t do so much math in your head that’s approximately 8500 ft) about halfway up the resort.
After lunch, it was time to ski back towards the town. On the way, we found a nice powder run; however, it unfortunately led to a dead end with a slow chairlift for people learning to ski. Oops. Once we made it out of the dead end, we skied the path back to Zermatt. On the way we found a great view of the city, right next to a mid-mountain champagne bar.
Don’t worry, we will provide more gratuitous cheese shots in the upcoming posts.