My dear friend Stefanie and I have been planning for over a year to see the Matterhorn and then ride on the Glacier Express, but things had always happened that prevented us from doing it- when we planned to go, the weather was atrocious, and then we were busy when the weather happened to be nice. Finally, we decided that we would try to go on the next-to-last weekend that the Express was running for the fall. This time we totally hit the jackpot and the weather was absolutely golden; of course, this meant that the tickets were pretty much sold out by the time we got around to buying them. So we ended up going on a Friday instead of on a weekend and got seats across the aisle from each other facing backwards. But it was a spectacular train ride!
We met the night before in Zermatt and got there early enough to get a quick walk in around sunset. I have never seen the Matterhorn so absolutely clear as it was this time. After the sun set, Stefanie and I had a delicious dinner at a burger restaurant before turning in for the evening. Since it was the in-between season, Zermatt was pretty quiet.
We got up early in the morning, had breakfast at our hotel, and then got in another walk to see the sun rising on the Matterhorn. It was really frosty and beautiful. Earlier in the week it had been quite cold and had snowed in the mountains even below 1000 m, so the mountains were white-capped and lovely.
After our morning constitutional we made it to our train and started our 6-hour journey. It was super hard to get good photos out of the train since we were on the aisle, facing backwards, and fighting the glare of the windows. The views were spectacular! Unfortunately, we ended up sitting next to a Swiss family that stopped talking for a maximum of 10 seconds the whole train ride. Their conversation wasn't even interesting- they spent 10 minutes debating if the tiramisu had coffee or rum or both... Woof.
My conclusion about the Glacier Express is that you should definitely ride the train on this route, because you get to see fantastically beautiful parts of the mountains (and the Swiss "Grand Canyon") from the comfort and ease of the train. However, I would suggest just riding the normal trains for this. There are trains that run the entire route frequently throughout the day, so it wouldn't be challenging. The ability to do the ride in segments as you want and to open the windows as you want would be nicer, I think, than having to make the reservation (not cheap), having to ride the whole way, and then trying to take photos out of the windows with no possibility to open them. Also, you are sort of forced to buy food and drink from the train, and the service is terrible, the food is so-so, and everything is expensive. The normal trains would also be mostly likely less crowded... Anyways, we still had a great time, but, if you're ever thinking about doing the Glacier Express, I'd suggest a DIY approach instead of riding the actual Glacier Express.
Stefanie and I got off the Glacier Express in Chur, because she had to get back to Ticino for a family dinner, and I headed back to Zurich. It was such a beautiful trip that I actually went back to this area the next day for a hike!
We met the night before in Zermatt and got there early enough to get a quick walk in around sunset. I have never seen the Matterhorn so absolutely clear as it was this time. After the sun set, Stefanie and I had a delicious dinner at a burger restaurant before turning in for the evening. Since it was the in-between season, Zermatt was pretty quiet.
We got up early in the morning, had breakfast at our hotel, and then got in another walk to see the sun rising on the Matterhorn. It was really frosty and beautiful. Earlier in the week it had been quite cold and had snowed in the mountains even below 1000 m, so the mountains were white-capped and lovely.
After our morning constitutional we made it to our train and started our 6-hour journey. It was super hard to get good photos out of the train since we were on the aisle, facing backwards, and fighting the glare of the windows. The views were spectacular! Unfortunately, we ended up sitting next to a Swiss family that stopped talking for a maximum of 10 seconds the whole train ride. Their conversation wasn't even interesting- they spent 10 minutes debating if the tiramisu had coffee or rum or both... Woof.
My conclusion about the Glacier Express is that you should definitely ride the train on this route, because you get to see fantastically beautiful parts of the mountains (and the Swiss "Grand Canyon") from the comfort and ease of the train. However, I would suggest just riding the normal trains for this. There are trains that run the entire route frequently throughout the day, so it wouldn't be challenging. The ability to do the ride in segments as you want and to open the windows as you want would be nicer, I think, than having to make the reservation (not cheap), having to ride the whole way, and then trying to take photos out of the windows with no possibility to open them. Also, you are sort of forced to buy food and drink from the train, and the service is terrible, the food is so-so, and everything is expensive. The normal trains would also be mostly likely less crowded... Anyways, we still had a great time, but, if you're ever thinking about doing the Glacier Express, I'd suggest a DIY approach instead of riding the actual Glacier Express.
Stefanie and I got off the Glacier Express in Chur, because she had to get back to Ticino for a family dinner, and I headed back to Zurich. It was such a beautiful trip that I actually went back to this area the next day for a hike!
