Ryan and Angela's European Vacation:
March 20 and 21

On March 20 we flew from London to Geneva. Heathrow Airport lived down to its reputation by not sending my suitcase, so we had to wait a couple hours for it at the Geneva airport. As a result, we missed our train to Zermatt. We got a hotel in Geneva and went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. I tried ordering in French (Geneva's primary language) and ended up with mineral water instead of ordinary water, but otherwise dinner was good (I had a pizza).

Even though it was late evening, it wasn't too cold, so Ang and I walked around Geneva until late. All the stores were closed at that time of night, but we hoped to do lots of shopping upon our return.

The next morning we rode two trains to Zermatt (a nice, smooth, comfortable one to Visp, then a transfer to a cog railway that slowly chugged uphill pretty much all the way to Zermatt, with big dropoffs on one side and cliffs on the other). Here's a picture of Ang at the rail station:

From my Switzerland guidebook: "Zermatt is a world-renowned resort with many luxurious accommodations and dozens of fashionable boutiques. You can walk from one end of the town to the other in about 15 minutes, which is handy because no cars are allowed on the local streets [there are electric taxis and a ski bus though]... In the peak season it's mobbed with hundreds of tourists."

When we got to Zermatt, we had lunch at the Brown Cow (part of the cluster of restaurants and nightclubs at Zermatt's Hotel de la Poste), then walked around, took a bunch of pictures, and did a little shopping. Here is a picture of Ang in Zermatt's Bahnhofplatz (Train Station Plaza).

Here's a picture of Ang elsewhere in Zermatt. Most of the roads in Zermatt don't have names, so even if I knew which road this was, I probably couldn't tell you.

Of course, it just wouldn't be a successful trip to Zermatt without taking a couple pictures of the Matterhorn. Here is one:

Here is another picture of the Matterhorn:

Here's another picture of Zermatt. It really is a lovely town.

Yet another picture of Zermatt.

This is a plaque on the wall of the Whymper Restaurant. On July 14, 1865, English explorer Edward Whymper became the first person to reach the summit of the Matterhorn. However, during the descent, four of his party of seven died in a fall.

Click here to go on to March 22