We're in Zermatt Switzerland starting off the day with another adventure. Leaving our
Hotel Butterfly right near the train station and we're going to walk over to the funicular
that will take us up to the Sunnegga, a mountain high above Zermatt town. We will ride a funicular
up and then we are going to walk down. Reaching the funicular in a few minutes we
notice out front they have a big map showing the different routes and different locations
up on the mountaintop. We'll be riding up this way in the underground
funicular and then walking down the mountain. Notice how many other routes there are in
the Zermatt area – it's huge. Just buy your tickets from the booth here,
no reservations necessary. You walk through a tunnel for about 80 m.
It's quite a stretch here going into the mountain. Notice it's not crowded because we're here
in the month of May which is kind of the shoulder season – very nice time to be here, not
crowded at all. This funicular goes up through a tunnel in
the mountain. You're never above ground – it's like a subway inside the mountain itself.
It was opened in 1980. That only took three minutes and now we're
out on the terrace. The sign shows you that from this one point
there are many different trails that you can take.
And there's a restaurant up here of course and a bar, you just have a drink, have a meal,
or just skip it, as we are going to head right out and do some walking.
And so we begin our descent – we figure this'll take us about an hour and a half – it
actually took about two hours, but it's all downhill and really quite easy and scenic.
Right away there's a little lake called Licee. In the summer time people go swimming in this
lake but it's a little nippy here in the month of May so we're just taking a look. And this
is one of five lakes up here on the plateau. You could keep walking further uphill and
see more of these lakes if you wish, but we are heading in the other direction so we just
stop and have a look down at the lake – beautiful reflections – and turn around, we keep on
walking down. You have a choice of direction in walking
down from Sunnegga to Zermatt. You can either go left or you can go right down each side
of this ridge. If you go to the lef, t that's to the south,
it takes about an hour and 45 minutes. If you go to the right that's on the north
side, they say takes about two hours. Well in our case we went to the left. Actually
doing to the right it's a little bit more of a forested trail winding through a slightly
steeper hill. If you go to the left as we did it's more of a gentle and straight slope
and we'll have some forest coming up as you'll see, so you take your pick.
This early part of the trail was reached within about 15 minutes and it was so pleasant, quite
level you got the rocky outcrop, you've got the hillside coming down with the grassy slopes
and a few wildflowers – slightly above the tree line and were about to enter into the
forest. It's a magnificent forest of Larch trees,
the typical forest cover of this part of Switzerland, a very hearty and durable wood that's used
for construction as well as firewood. Getting into the characteristic zigzag cut
of the trail, it's going steeper downhill but still it's been planned so that the slope
is very easy for anybody to cover. You do not have to be in any kind of special physical
condition to make this hike, it's really quite easy. It's going take you an hour and a half
to two hours, and might help if you have a walking stick, especially when you're going
downhill. Another trick when you're going downhill is don't try and put on the brakes,
just go with gravity, go with the flow and let the hill carry you down.
Some places of course get a little steeper and there is some tricky rocks and dirt under
foot so you have got a be more careful, sit down, take a break, take a rest, take it easier
enjoying yourself here. You notice we're using some sticks that we
found on the trailside to help stabilize ourselves as we walked down. You could always find the
odd branch or two, so look around and grab one, it's part of the fun and that'll help
you get down. Or on the other hand if you're more serious
hiker, a regular on the trails, you want to have these poles – Nordic walking sticks.
Local folks tend to walk uphill, they enjoy the exercise but it's easier to walk downhill.
With all the beautiful scenery and the lovely trees and the easy walk down, we find that
the trail is beginning to level, off it looks like there's light at the end of the tunnel,
we've almost arrived at the bottom. From this point the trail is all quite level
especially compared to what we've just come down from up on the mountain. We are in the
suburbs of the little village of Zermatt. There are houses developing, they are sprouting
up like wildflowers here. This town is quite small, only about 6000 population but it's
booming, it's growing quite rapidly because of the increase of tourism – all the time
people want to come to Zermatt to enjoy these beautiful mountains all around.
Notice you can stay in a house rather than in a hotel. There is a large number of these
bed and breakfasts and rooms for rent in the typical Swiss chalet that might be a nice
choice for the visitor. This house looked like it stepped right out
of a postcard – it is so perfect with all those flowers and the wooden balconies and
benches, and planters in a beautiful lawn out front, the rustic chalet wooden architecture.
There's the Gornergrat train coming down from the mountaintop – we have shown you that
in a previous episode. Well the town is booming. There really is
construction everywhere but don't worry they're not going to ruin it – Zermatt will always
be a village, it will always have that small-town charm and they're just making it better, they're
doing a great job with these modern expansions, more houses, a few more hotels, make more
room for the visitors. Finally we've arrived back in town. We're
just a few minutes away from the main streets of the village, but even here you see there's
open fields and wildflowers especially in the month of May – it's the perfect time
to visit for wildflowers and access to the trails. And then we are back in town ready
to start our next adventure. We have more movies about Zermatt and a lot
more movies about the rest of Switzerland, so take a look at our YouTube channel and
our website.