Walks

For a gentle day to let my knees recover from Pollux I decided to follow part of the Europaweg which starts at Sunnega (Al chose to climb the Oberrothorn). I took the funnicular from Zermatt to Sunnega at 11:20 a.m. and followed the clearly sign posted path which contours round the hillside.

The path descended through the forest, and was open despite the forest works going on. Al later told me that was quite surprising, and that the path would have been closed on health and safety grounds had it been in the UK. After a while I came to a place where my path went through a field and then down to the road which joins Tasch and Zermatt. The alternative route would have taken me in to Tasch itself, and had the weather been poor I would have chosen this, and caught a train to Zermatt.

I crossed the road, followed by a bridge over the river. The route then went towards Zermatt, making its way above the railway tracks for most of the way. The path comes in to Zermatt near the pasture in which the goats graze during the day, and I stopped to look at them in the distance for a while before heading down to the train station to do my postcard shopping.

I reached our appartment in Zermatt at 4:00 p.m. having taken just over four hours for the walk. It is an enjoyable route which has good views, and I would highly recommend it.

A few days after our adventure on the Matterhorn I decided that I would try a short and gentle walk to finish off the holiday. My leg still hurt if I did not take care of it (an example is when I ran up stairs back in Birmingham, having forgotten about it and my Mum learnt a new word!), but I decided it would be OK for a walk from Sunnega to Stellisee. We headed up on the funnicular just after 11:00 a.m. and made our way under the gondola. The views were a little more hazy than last time we were at Sunnega, however it was still very hot. The going was quite easy and we reached Stellisee at around lunch time. We were disappointed to see that there was an exhibition of "men" made of re-cycled materials at the lake, and so we did not hang around! As we continued past the lake we heard and saw a large rock fall occur above the path below the Stockhorn opposite, and hoped no walkers were on that trail.

After luch we made our way back past Stellisee, and then followed the path which leads to Zermatt via Eggen, Findeln and Winkelmatten. We stopped at the Mexican Restaurant in Zermatt for a beer, and returned later for our evening meal, which was thoroughly enjoyed. Regarding places to eat, during our time in Zermatt I ate at the Stadel on the main street a number of times, and I can highly recommend their food which comes in large quantities and tastes excellent, especially their specialities. I returned there on the Thursday for my last evening meal with Al before we parted company.