I don’t get it. The whole day the sky has been 99% clear. Except around the Matterhorn. All day today, and all day yesterday the sky is clear, and sunny, and it’s hot out. Except there’s just clouds always hovering around the top of the Matterhorn masking it. There was only 1 or 2 very, very short period of time where it was mostly clear.

Anyways, the first thing I did was go to the Matterhorn Museum, which is a really cool underground museum. Underneath there’s lots of reconstructions (I’m guessing they’re reconstructions, but some looked like they could have been real old buildings relocated to the museum) of old Zermatt buildings, with tons of old tools, relics, and supplies on display. It looks like a miniature city. One building is an old farmer’s home. Another is a little barn where butter and cheese was made and stored. There was a mini church, and a mini home with a room with a bunch of relics from the mostly ill-fated first expedition to the top of the Matterhorn in 1865. There is even a (definitely) reconstructed hotel with theater inside, showing clips from the Matterhorn.

After that I headed down south towards the base to check out the tram to the top of the nearby mountain which gives a great view all around the valley and of the Matterhorn. I was excited to go up until I found out the price. So I went to a major Swiss bank to ask for a loan, but they told me there just wasn’t enough money, physical or digital anywhere in the world that was enough to buy a ticket up the tram. Now usually I don’t mind spending more than I’m comfortable to see something really cool, but this was just beyond absurd. This tram went to one area of the mountain called something like Glacial Alpine World, and I went to another tram area which goes to another popular peak, and it was almost the same price. Wish I coulda gone up, but it was just way more than I was willing to spend… maybe sometime in the future though.

So, after deciding not to go into debt for the rest of my life,  I continued down south to a gorge, called the Gornerschlucht. It’s a cool wooden platform walkway along a river, with a nice hiking path. It was pretty. Then I had a bunch of extra time, so I went back to the nearby train station to see about getting a train ticket for my next town, but I don’t have enough organs to sell to be able to afford the price I saw so I went to the information/tourist center to find out more, but a sign caught my eye advertising a city walk tour in a little while, which I found to be much more within my budget so I decided to sign up for that instead. Then a little while later I showed up for the tour and met the guide Franz, an older man, and longtime resident of Zermatt, and we waited, and waited, and nobody else showed up. So, like at the Babelsberg Filmstudio tour in Potsdam, I got another personal 1 on 1 tour walk around Zermatt, full of interesting information. Some random fun facts:

• There’s only real 5 cars in Zermatt, each owned by doctors, to be used for medical/emergency situations. The other taxis/delivery trucks/etc… are all little box like goofy looking very small electric vehicles.
• The Matterhorn is named after the German words ‘Matte/Horn’. Matte = meadow, and horn because it reminded them of the appearance of a sheep horn, or animal horn.
• All the buildings, or at least the roofs of the buildings/homes in Zermatt face the same direction for weather/snow reasons.
• The town has been there for at least 800 years.
• Over 100 people climb up and down the Matterhorn every single day. The only way up is a very expensive class, which requires 3 days of preparation and climbing training around nearby mountains for practice. Along with staying in a cabin at the base of the mountain for a night. 5 hours to get up, 1 hour at the top, and then 5 hours down.
• There is year round skiing, any day, every day of the year up at the peak I was going to take the chairlift to. It’s popular for people all around the world, and is used as a major training spot for world champion skiiers.

During the tour we walked down the main shopping street and stopped in a bread store, and got to sample several different kinds of local breads, and some chocolate candies. Yum! It turned into a sales pitch for the shop after that, but it was fun. We continued on the tour, and then later he was set to take me to a meat shop to sample some local meats, but I declined that offer. It pretty much ended right after that. By then it was getting late, and cold, so I got some overly expensive Pizza, after begging for money for hours.

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