Bourques in Barcelona: Weekend in the Swiss Alps

Hello everyone! We are back in Spain for two months this fall, renting another house in our favourite village, Caldes d'Estrac, north of Barcelona. During our first week here, Pat had a business trip to Geneva, so I tagged along and spent a lovely day with my long-time friend, Cathy, her two daughters and two young grandchildren, in Clarmont, near Morges. It was a perfect fall week of sunshine, warm afternoon temperatures and beautiful colours through the vineyards and trees.

On Friday afternoon, October 23rd, we took an afternoon train along Lac Léman towards the Valais, changing in Visp for the mountain railway to Zermatt. We stayed two nights in Hotel Firefly with a lovely view over the surrounding mountains. These pictures were taken from our balcony:

Breakfast was brought to our room at the chosen time-love the egg warmer!

After breakfast we wandered through the village, lots of tourists, only electric cars/taxis permitted to drive the local roads.

Here is our first glimpse of the famous Matterhorn:

The Rhône River starts from the glaciers above and flows swiftly through the village on the Lac Léman, Geneva and south to the Mediterranean.

The front façade of our Hotel Firefly:

The Matterhorn appeared more clearly as the day wore on:

We spent some time in the local cemetery, one section of which is dedicated to the many mountaineers who lost their lives on the mountains, most at a young age.

We packed a picnic lunch and took the cable car up to the top of the Matterhorn Glacier to check out the view and watch the skiers, 100 CHF return (about $100 CAD each!).

It was cold and quite windy from the terrace of the restaurant and not being properly dressed for the occasion, we didn't stay long! We went down on the cable car to Schwarzee and walked from there to Furi, about three hours. We then got back on the cable car to Zermatt and treated ourselves to a lovely massage in our hotel!

Here you can see where several glaciers have carved troughs in the mountains, as well as how much they have melted in recent years. However, they still provide much of the hydro power in the area.

For much of the way the trail looked like this, some snow/ice underfoot and often quite muddy. It serves also as a road for vehicles doing maintenance work.