DOWN THE VALLEY

Our Zermatt friends John and Barbara delight in taking foreign visitors to visit the  local sights. And it's usually a surprise. So one day, we were whisked down the mountain highway from the parking garage at the bottom of town (local residents can bring cars into town, but only as far as the garage).

Getting out of Zermatt is an adventure: in most places the road is just a single lane, with broad spots in the road where one car -- usually the downhill-bound -- must pull over and allow the other to pass. Once you reach Täsch, where all Zermatt-bound motorists must park their cars and continue by train, the highway expands to a normal two-way road.  As you continue down the valley, you enjoy all scenic vistas at every turn, with a mix of ancient haybarns and modern chalets, and even some centuries-old stone barns that have been converted to living quarters.

Finally, near Visp, you can see terraced vineyards climb the steep hillsides, as some of Europe's highest-altitude grapes ripen in the August sun for use in the famous "Heida-Wein" of the Valais canton.

We turn west from Visp and soon begin a long climb, up a series of switchback roads with majestic vistas across the valley. We pass through a number of picturesque villages with colorful names -- Eischoll, Unterbach, Burchen -- then the road becomes a simple track through the woods, finally breaking out into open air just above the treeline at the top of the hill.  And there is our destination -- the quaint MoosAlp restaurant above the village of Tőrbel.

The outdoor seating was not being used -- umbrellas were furled, as the cool breeze had driven everyone indoors.

After a memorable lunch of raclette (melted over an outdoor fire) and a melt-in-your-mouth dessert of cream-laced millefeuille pastry called cremeschnitte, we stepped outdoors to "walk it off."

Every moutain in the valley has its own ski area, it seems.  From one of the steep MoosAlp meadow runs, we could see the ski trails across the valley at Graechen, near the village of St. Niklaus. As you can see, you can't get a bad view in the Swiss Alps.

Turning back, we had another vista down the road we would traverse to return to the valley, which looked even more exciting through the car windshield.

As in all the high Alps, the road switches occasionally from two lanes to one, depending on the amount of terra firma available for paving. At some hairpin turns, there are curved mirrors to help you see "around the corner" -- so you won't be surpised by oncoming traffic, especially the hourly Post bus!

Once safely down to Stalden, John couldn't resist a swing up to Saas Fee, to show us the glacier that overhangs the town even in summer.

Like Zermatt, Saas Fee is an "auto-free" town, so visitors must park in an immense lot outside the village and take an electric taxi or hoof it into town. We learned the high glacier at the upper right of the bowl is, literally, the backside of one of the moutains we can see in Zermatt.

After an hour-long ride back up the highly engineered highway, with miles-long tunnels to protect the road from avalanches of snow or rock, we were happy to be, once more, safely out of the car in Zermatt. In the Alps, even a simple road trip is an adventure.