We are continuing our look at Zermatt, Switzerland, a beautiful village in the heart of the Alps's,
most famous for the majestic Matterhorn mountain that towers over it. And in this episode we
are going to walk down from the Sunnegga mountain – it is an easy and scenic hike. But first
we'll have a quick look around in the beautiful village of Zermatt and then later in this
episode, after our mountain hike, we will take you back into Zermatt village for some
more views. We happened to be in Zermatt during a very
special time of the year to see the goats parade. This happens during the summer time
from late June until the middle of August, and the goats come walking through the village
two times: at 9 o'clock in the morning they are walking out from the town to the pasture,
and 5 PM in the evening they return to the village every day, but only in the summer
for about six weeks. These are Valais blackneck goats, and they are herd of about 50 animals
who are the stars of Zermatt summertime. The goat herders are youngsters who live in the
area and each day three different children get the honor of walking the goats.
By 1970 these goats had become an endangered species, but they have been cultivated and
they bounced back since then and now it's estimated there are over 3000 of these goats
in the area. Well now we are going to take you up the Sunnegga
mountain and we'll hike down on a route that's different from the trail that we have already
presented in another video about the Sunnegga – you can find that also on our YouTube
channel. Start by riding up the underground funicular.
Taking the trail on the north side of the funicular.
Compared to the trail that we just finished, which was from the left side, or south s of
the funicular. The sign shows our outing in the direction
of Tuftern. I takes about the same length of time to get down to the bottom, down to
Zermatt, whether you go down the trail on the left side or the trail on the right side.
And they are about equal in angle and difficulty, but they do have their own differences that
we will be showing you now as we walk on down the trail.
Something nice they share in common are these frequent views that you get of the Matterhorn,
the magnificent signature mountain of Zermatt. Remains of an old avalanche.
Scenery at the upper level is open forest with the grassy hillside between the trees.
In about half an hour you arrive at this tiny hamlet of Tuftern. There are a couple restaurants
and cafés here so that you can actually take a break if you feel like it, sit down, get
something to eat. More likely you're just going to keep on walking by but it's a pretty
collection of chalet-style buildings just to enjoy as you walk on down the hill.
For just a short while the trail gets wide and gravelly and dusty and not so attractive
– it is more of a bicycle trail than anything, but most of the trail ahead is going to be
nice and narrow and geared for the hiker. It'll take about one more hour to reach the
bottom and practically throughout that entire walk now you're going to be enjoying scenery
like this with the green hillside and lots of trees – these are primarily the Lark
trees, the native tree of the area, and it is very clean and green and plenty of fresh
air up here. There are several different and interconnecting
routes on his hillside. You notice some of them are wide like this for the bicyclists
– you might even consider doing it as a bike ride – you can rent a bicycle in town
and bring the bicycle up the funicular and then just ride down on the wider roads. That
would be a nice way to do it. Walking puts you on the smaller, more narrow
trails. This signpost is offering us a lot of different
choices, and you'll notice the numbers there that's not miles or kilometers, that's hours.
So the one that's on hour, half, so on, three quarters of an hour. We are heading in the
direction of Reed and then on to Zermatt for a total walk of one more hour.
The sign marks a trail intersection and here it splits. We will take the lower path that
will take us down to Reed and away from the bicycle traffic.
And now the trail gets a little steeper, a little bit more uneven, so you've got to watch
your step. It does help to use a walking stick. I'm not
able to do that because you'll notice I'm taking pictures with the video camera, and
in fact have got my camera mounted on a steadycam to give you that floating effective walking
along with me in the forest, but you've got to be careful.
At this point it's an ideal mountain trail, it's easy and it's just the right angle downhill
that it lets you float along without any effort at all, and it winds and turns in the sinuous-esque
curves that are just very pleasant. And even though you're in a rather heavy forest
it still opens up now and then for those classic views of the Matterhorn.
Alternatively another way to get down this hill is to jump off it. In a paraglider. You
can go up even as a total amateur – you go up with an expert and you can fly tandem.
You just take that funicular up, walk up a little bit more and jump off the mountain,
you'll come floating down right in to Zermatt. Final signpost showing it's just 15 more minutes
to the end of the trail. In this bottom section the trail levels off
a little bit more. You're still heading downhill but it's even, nice smooth surface, very easy
walking. At this point you know you're getting close
to town because you look at the Matterhorn and then you look down and there's a village
in the valley below. It's only another five or 10 minutes before you are reaching the
first house. At the bottom of the hill we’re going to
take another little walk in town and show you some of the shops as they were and still
look today. Well here comes the last little stretch of
our nature trail and then it becomes more of a urban pathway – staircase and paved
lane that'll bring us right back into the suburbs of the village.
There goes the Gornergrat train. We've taken you up there in another episode in Zermatt.
A view looking back up at the hillside that we just walked down.
Green hillside covered with trees, very nice walk.
There's a large mural map outside the funicular office that shows you the routings and many
trail choices you got when you go up the Sunnegga Hill.
Recap the route that we just took down this time from the north side of the funicular,
winding around, passing the hamlet of Tuftern, and on down the hill.
The fun continues with further walking in the village of Zermatt. Right down the main
lane, you see it is lined with all sorts of interesting shops, restaurants, buildings
and fascinating people to watch always. Got a love the variety of eateries here in
town from the simple sidewalk sausage stand to these nice outdoor restaurant. You can
sit on the terrace and you are right on the main lane here and watch the people go by.
Of course Zermatt is a year-round holiday resort town, great in the summer for hiking
and walking and just being this beautiful village, and the winter it's a tremendous
ski resort. There are places where you can actually ski all summer long at the top of
the Klein Matterhorn – it's the largest summer ski slopes in all of Europe, but mostly
summer activities are relaxing in the town, and taking a walk out in the countryside,
and riding up to those beautiful mountain heights for the views.
As you can see it's a lot of fun just to walk along on the main lane of the village. You
can go back and forth, it's just about a mile or a kilometer and a half from one end to
the other, and there's some little side lanes you can explore as well.
One of the great hotels of the world is located here in Zermatt – it's the five stars super
deluxe Zermatterhof Hotel. They've got a garden restaurant – you can sit outdoors or sit
indoors and you can have afternoon tea or a complete meal here.
The Grand Hotel Zermatterhof is constantly being upgraded and improved and the guests
are pampered.