You stand at platform 8 as your silver train arrives. You step aboard and take your seat (26 - window seat). The train is light and airy with huge windows and sun roofs. You sit adjacent to two Japanese ladies who refuse to take off their hats, sunglasses and rain jackets, and who eat a chocolate brownie with a knife and fork. The spectacle is quite amusing to you. There is lively chatter and the clinking of knives and forks as the passengers who shelled out a fortune for an average-looking meal tuck in (you are not one of them). The train gently hums along and you settle back in your chair, smiling at the realisation that you are in the Swiss Alps. Beside you on the seat, a bag full of food: a mini loaf of bread, some cheese (Swiss of course), a lettuce and fruit. You look out the windows and behold small mountain villages and soaring peaks taking over the entire picture window. You try to take photos but the glare from the super clean windows renders them pointless. You instead sit back and experience it all, committing it to memory rather than memory chip. Green mountain faces are punctuated by small crevasses of gushing water. Streaks of snow appear like a zebra's stripes. The landscape disappears as the train chugs though another tunnel. You snack on an apricot. When you emerge again you spot lonely chairlifts, suspended awkwardly over the grassy mountain face, just waiting for the snow. Cyclists zoom past on the road. Horizontal fences jut out all over - a reminder of the treacherous avalanches they face in winter. Yellow daisies conjure images of The Sound of Music (wrong country, you know) and Heidi. Cows remind you of home in New Zealand, except here they all wear bells.
The five and a half hours on board this train were magical. Really special. It was quite an effort even just to get to the train: 2 hours to Zurich, then 1 hour to Chur, 5 1/2 hours on the Glacier Express to Zermatt, then another three hours to get home. 11 1/2 hours on trains all up. It was a lonnng time to be on trains, but I loved it. I arrived at Zermatt at just after 5pm, I bypassed the very touristy small downtown area and walked to the edge of the town, where the Matterhorn juts out over the landscape. It was really incredible. After standing there in awe for a while I walked back to town, considered taking a cable car further up the mountain, decided not to when I saw the price (and the fact that they were closing in 15 minutes). Instead, I headed to the Zermatt museum - an amazing building to see, it is made of glass shaped into a mountain. I knew they were closing soon, so I went to ask if I would have enough time to see everything, they said that it was going to be open for 45 minutes longer tonight only because of a tour group arriving! I was so happy that I would have enough time to go through, and what's even better was they let me go in for free! So nice of them! The museum was so interesting, I just loved it. After that I walked through the town cemetery and saw the gravestones of those who died climbing the Matterhorn. It was a sombre moment.
I then grabbed a hot chocolate and boarded my train on my long journey home. It was a fantastic day. I loved every moment.
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