Cindy's Spain/France/Switzerland adventure 2026

     July 6 was a travel day. We left Zermatt for Evian les Bains; Jae and Boots left Zermatt for Geneva. We traveled on the same train but parted ways in Geneva where Jae/Boots were going to spend the night before traveling to their home in Angers, France.      We changed trains in Geneva and on the way to Annemasse, there was – what we thought – a drug bust right in front of us! Three police officers (two males and a female with a K9 drug detector) swooshed by us and confronted a young man who was sitting at the door of the train. One male questioned the man, asking for identification, while the other male put on gloves and searched the young man’s backpack. They didn’t find anything, so they left.       We arrived in Evian and our hostess, Sabine from Germany, picked us up at the train station. The station is located nearly above the place in which we’re staying BUT it’s a lot of stairs going down from the station and/or quite the wal...

     Today we took off on the Gornergrat Railway (Gornergrat Bahn in German); it is the highest open-air railway in Europe, giving uninterrupted views as it climbs from the center of Zermatt to a viewing platform at 10,134.51 feet, directly overlooking the Matterhorn and the glacier basin below. The cogwheel passed through larch forest, open alpine slopes and high rocky ground, with the landscape shifting noticeably as altitude increased.      We decided to go directly to the summit first then attempt to find the heard of around 125 Valais Blacknose sheep that graze the alpine meadows. The sheep move around the mountain each day – always in search of the best grazing spots. Some of the sheep wear a GPS collar, so we could go to a website on our phones to see where the sheep were grazing.       The ride up to Gornergrat took about 30 minutes. There are four stops in total between Zermatt and Gornergrat: Findelbach, Riffelalp, Riffelberg a...

       Today was a day of exploring Zermatt. We started at the Matterhorn Museum – Zermatlantis where we learned about Zermatt’s development from a village of mountain farmers to a world-famous alpine resort. It featured original houses and interiors, and recreations of the world of the inhabitants and of former alpine explorers.       The multimedia room showed excerpts from the film “Der Berg ruft” (“The mountain calls”) by Luis Trenker. It was filmed in Zermatt in 1937/1938 and included scenes of the deadly fall following the first ascent. The first ascent of this 14,692-feet mountain was on July 14, 1860 (nearly 166 years to the day we were there). It was done by Edward Whymper from England and six others including Lord Francis Douglas, a young English climber and Peter Taugwalder and his son. The group successfully reached the summit but tragedy occurred on the descent. As they were going back down the mountain all roped together, one of the ...

     We boarded the Glacier Express in St. Moritz after breakfast and got settled into our first-class seats. The train is panoramic, which means you can see out the top of the coach. The train trip was about 8 hours long but we cruised through the most beautiful sights. The route is part of the Rhaetian Railway, and we retraced some of the route we took the previous day to get to St. Moritz. It was the Albula line, one of the most spectacular narrow gauge railways in the world with 55 bridges and 39 tunnels. It’s 38.32 miles long.  The Albula line and the Bernina railway line were jointly recorded in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2008. Enjoy some of the photos I took from the moving train.  Us, of course, on the Glacier Express. Our traveling companions, Jae and Boots, having lunch.

Today was a travel day. We tidied up our apartment in Chambery, took off for the train station around 8 am. We were on a different train than Jae/Boots. It’s weird – I’m using my Eurail interrail schedule, and they bought their tickets from the train network. So we ended up taking the southern route, and they took the northern route – although we ended up in St. Moritz just minutes apart. Our train left Chambery to Geneva (changed trains) to Zurich (changed trains) to Chur (changed trains) to our destination in St. Moritz. They went to Landquart instead of Chur. Anywho – after we left Chur the scenery began changing. And I gotta tell ya that it’s challenging trying to get photos on your phone from a moving train! We left Geneva and went on the north shore of Lake Geneva through Lusanne. On the way, we could see some of the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, which is an 830-hectare UNESCO World Heritage site stretching for about 30 kilometers along the north shore. Because the steep layo...