HERE'S LOOKING @ YOU, CH-3920

IF IT'S BEEN A FEW YEARS since you visited CH-3920 Zermatt, be prepared for a small city, not a village, with 100+ hotels, tens of thousands of visitors, endless construction, and disappearing greenery within the town. Today being a special one, we planned to lunch at the Schoenegg, or "Beautiful Corner" hotel, where we could see how the town is changing.

Luncheon was simple but memorable: First, some good Swiss white Fendant. Then on to a delicious soup: on one side of the table, Andalusian gazpacho, crisply cold and served with a side of violet-adorned sundried tomato/olive tapenade on crackers; and on the other, creamy morel mushroom soup-of-the-day, just singing with forest flavor. (Why must we settle for dried porcinis at home; morels do grow in New England!) To follow up, there were two types of steak tartare: the original, brimming with onion, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste; and the Asian, zesty with fresh ginger, sesame and green onion. In keeping with today's passion for vertical food, the tartares were each planted with a sprig of parsley and another violet!

Looking out at Zermatt through the new glass railing, you can see the base of the cloud-wrapped Matterhorn, the new copper roof of the Zermatterhof Hotel (to the right of the tall tree just above the wine bucket), the Monte Rosa Hotel across the street and the Mt. Cervin a couple of buildings to the right (look from the menu card up past a green swath of grass to the building whose top floor is all dormer windows). Note the Vispa River, in its concrete banks, bounding through the center of town (just to the right of the menu card.) And notice the "hotel creep" on the side of the far hill.

A few more shots show the river continuing its way through town and down the valley. The turquoise horizontal swath in the center is ALL that is left of the original town center -- just a few tennis courts/ice hockey rinks surrounded by luxurious apartments and shops. And the plywood rooftops at right are the main shopping complex opposite the Bahnhof (across from the Gornergrat Bahn terminus, which is the large, flat roof on the cream-colored building in the vertical picture).

The construction you see immediately below the Schoenegg porch is 7 Heavens, a new luxury condo development we'll cover in another post. Can you see the river wending its way? Happily, the steep hillside across the river is too avalanche-prone for building (and has no Matterhorn view). But it's good for some other things, which will also be the subject of an upcoming post.

Looking across the lower town, you can see the Bahnhof with two red Glacier Express trains waiting on a siding for their trip across the Alps -- ultimately to St. Moritz. The lower part of Zermatt, once sparsely built, is filling in as well. (The panorama concludes with the beautiful Schoenegg balconies at the right.)

BIRDS OF ZERMATT

A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK, we posted an entry that showed a chainsaw carver working on a wooden eagle at the Furi station just above town.  In more recent walks, we've found additional birds that could be the work of the same carver.

FOR EXAMPLE, an old farm building in Furi is home to a pair of carved birds – an owl and a falcon or some other raptor – perched on a ledge near the door. Presumably they help to keep the barn safe from rodents.

AND MORE RECENTLY, we have spotted a couple of carved statues along mountain trails depicting two oversize "species" of Mittlespecht  –  woodpeckers, although I tend to think of them as cuckoo birds  –  actively attacking forest trees.

IN FACT, on a recent birding trek in this land of the clouds, we were alarmed to spy a menacing creature approaching one of the native carvings.

More research is clearly needed to identify this latest interloper. It's possible this is the rare "funny hatted, red-sweatered, mountain marauder" that has been sighted in late summer in Zermatt for many decades. Caution is advised.

A HOUSE PARTY

IN FAIR WEATHER OR FOUL, the porch of the Hotel Christiania is a first-rate spot to enjoy life on our planet Earth. We recently found some snapshots that recall a sunny summer day (part of our look back at some good times in Zermatt) when the Peter Franzen-Bieri family invited their guests to celebrate life in the mountains.

Photo from https://www.christiania-zermatt.com

Hotel Christiania's Franzen-Bieri family on the terrace: Kathie and Peter, flanked by their sons Michel (left) and Domenic (right). 

REZEPT (RECIPE): Take one of the sunniest, most scenic terraces in town and fill it with special guests, good music, wine, laughter, and -- oh, yes -- the luscious aroma of melting raclette. You have the makings of a memorable party.

Michel (left) warms the Raclette machine as Kathie (right) plans logistics with the unflappable Pedro (center)

The music plays and the young ones jump up to dance...

While a guy in a funny mountain hat and other guests 

wait for their Raclette plates to arrive

Michel serves plates of molten raclette 

And the guy in the funny mountain hat shows Michel exactly which table

should receive a plate of raclette ASAP

While the Matterhorn watches in silent splendor over us all

SETTLING IN

ONE OF OUR ANNUAL RITUALS is "greeting the mountain." This year, when we arrive in the afternoon, we find the whole mountain iis visible despite the high overcast.

As in other years weather seems to be obeying one of the basic facts of nature  – it's always in flux. As we watch, the clouds gather and pull a veil across the Matterhorn's upper face.

But just as quickly, the veil is swept away. As the weather clears, the near meadows show a vibrant green, which augurs well for a robust fireworks display on the Swiss national day, August 1. (Last year the fireworks were cancelled throughout the nation because of drought.)

And the day ends well, with the sun breaking through for an evening panorama from the front porch -- or terrasse, as the hotel calls it.

So good to be back! (But notice the thin, dark clouds amassing once more.) What's next? Only time will tell...

THE SILENT TREATMENT

WE TOOK THE NEW, EARLIER 5 PM plane from Logan, to arrive at dawn in Zurich. By the time we reached the train station, the local time was 7 AM and the Tourist Office was just opening. It was a simple matter to buy tickets and reach the platform for the 7:40 Intercity to Zermatt, and we managed to climb aboard what WE THOUGHT was the right car. Heaving a sign of relief, we stowed our luggage and dropped gratefully into the handicapped seats right next to the door. Then we saw the sign on the window.

We had managed to land in an "absolute silence" club car! Already our fellow passengers were only too "vocal" in their shushing gestures, standing with fingers on their lips, indicating that we dare not even speak in the most subdued whispers. Well, there was no way we could drag all our luggage to the upper car! And so the "hush-hush set" welcomed us to Europe.

It's amazing how loud every sound is when NO SPEAKING whatsoever is allowed. Every sibilant blast of the car door opening, every word of the subdued station announcements, and the deafening roar of the train as it races through frequent tunnels. Only the conductor who punched the tickets was allowed to speak (no one dared to shush him!)

And so we were policed by our fellow travelers, all the way across the country. After Bern, when only a single passenger besides ourselves remained, we leaned our heads together and exchanged a few quiet words. From the other end of the car came the angry snap of newspaper pages being turned. The only sound of normal human commerce was the pleasant laughter of several women in the next car.

When we reached Visp, the paper-snapper joined us on the departure platform at the end of the quiet car. As he prepared to disembark, he set down his leather briefcase and smoothed his silvery hair and navy blazer to put his best foot forward. When we pulled into the station and the train stopped, he pantomimed instructions that I should exit to the right. "Surely we can use words now," I smiled, and reached up to push the green button that would open the door to the platform.

"No, no," he insisted, as he jerked my hand from the button. Startled, I pulled away. Meanwhile, the sociable ladies from the next car had arrived. One of them quickly wrenched his hand aside and pressed the button to open the door. I stood back and let the Swiss sort it out.

A CHARM OF GOLDFINCHES

I’ve never seen An Exaltation of Larks (except for the book by James Lipton), but have seen a vast murmuration of thousands of starlings in early winter over 6-lane Route 3 here in Massachusetts. (How do they dip and weave in their Moebius bends and still avoid sending their neighbors crashing to the ground?)

But we had a new experience yesterday in the brush between the garden and the lower pond, as a mob of several dozen still-gold finches came crashing all about us in an exuberant rapture of activity, weaving magically among the branches and twittering loudly among themselves. 

We had no camera with us, so had to search the internet for an image that most closely resembled what we saw. (Thanks to the anonymous online photographer who had a camera at the ready!)

Were the goldfinches celebrating some midsummer ritual, clamoring for the rich supply of local bugs, or as our local bird guru has wondered, anxious parents taking young ones out for their first drive (and hoping they wouldn’t accidentally take out every mailbox on the street?)

Lipton also calls this a “glister” of goldfinches. And with the bears of Wall Street advising that we all invest in gold now, we can imagine no more rewarding investment than the several minutes we were flashed by this mob.

MOUNTAIN DREAMS FROM HOME

SNOWMAGEDDON in Buffalo NY brings thoughts of the Swiss Alps, where the snow belongs. I was drawn to the Zermatt webcams, curious to know if the snow had started there. And so it has. Even a webcam mounted at the Schonegg Hotel, next door to the Christiania, shows a light snow cover in the village.

HEADING slightly out of town, the webcam for the village of Findeln shows early season snow cover -- a far cry from the flower-strewn fields we visited in August.

Brings dreams of hopping a plane to see the world in snowy glory.

Winter can be beautiful!