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Switzerland/Italy Trip
Friday, Sep 12
Yet another bad night of sleep for me. The weather didn't cooperate much early this morning. It rained heavily, then began to clear up somewhat by 10:00, but the higher mountains remained hidden in cloud.
After breakfast, Deb and Gregg went off to do some shopping and look for a cuckoo clock. Pat and I spent a long time relaxing at an outdoor restaurant. I felt strung out and tired and needed to just sit and vegetate for a while.
The restaurant in Zermatt where we ate lunch
Downtown Zermatt -- they were having a festival
After lunch, which was a big salad and some pizza, Pat and I walked up the Zermatt main street toward the Matterhorn. We hoped to see at least some of it, but weren't too optimistic. But as we rounded the corner of a group of Swiss chalets, we saw that at least the right side of the mountain was visible.
The Matterhorn finally peaks out a little
bit from the clouds...
...and a little bit more. It was feeling shy that afternoon...
We left Zermatt at 3:00 and drove back down the valley. As we made our way toward Visp, we saw what was probably an old landslide of biblical proportions on the side of one of the mountains.
A quick way to produce gravel -- have an entire mountainside collapse
Driving down from Täsch
We then drove up to the Furka glacier. The weather was good in the central mountain valley, so it was a great day to see the glacier. Clouds were flowing over from the north side, looking like vast waterfalls of mist.
The clouds and mist steal silently up over the Furka Pass
and drop into the valley like a giant waterfall
It was downright spooky
A good shot of the floor of the valley, below the
glacier waterfall, with the encroaching
clouds spilling over in the distance
A hair-raising switchback going up to the Furka glacier
The glacier was smaller than two years ago. The ice cave seemed to be in a different place, but was still a fantastic way to see what it's like inside a glacier. Blue and cold and beautiful! After our glacier tour, we bought a few things, got ham and cheese sandwiches and drove on up through the Furka Pass and into the clouds.
The Furka glacier -- still pretty impressively huge,
even though it shrinks more every year
Walking down toward the ice cave
We really lucked out on the sunshine while we were at the glacier
Pat about to enter the ice cave. He's on the wooden planks.
In the ice cave under the glacier.
Talk about blue crush.
Deb and Gregg on ice
The shrinking front edge of the glacier, where the ice melts
and roars over the cliff to the left in a huge waterfall
It's hard to see because this is a picture of a picture, but this was
the extent
of the glacier in the early 1900s as seen from the valley below. The glacier
actually came all the way down the waterfall slope and into the upper
valley. The rectangle is the approximate area shown in the next photo.
The same glacier 100 years later. This photograph corresponds
to the rectangular area outlined in the photo above it. Only a tiny portion
of the glacier remains visible from the valley below.
Along the way we had to slow down for some cattle in the road. Apparently they were being rounded up by their owners. We rolled down the windows so Gregg and Deb could hear what the Swiss cow bells sounded like. Gregg said if he had to wear one of them, he's commit suicide. Apparently the cows get used to it.
We drove until the cows came home...
The switchbacks were an adventure in the dense clouds. The GPS map helped us prepare for sharp turns coming up in the wet roads. We found our way past the lake district and into Zürich and on to the airport. We stayed at the Renaissance Marriott hotel. The weather was still pretty rainy in Switzerland.