Driving to Zermat

Breakfast this morning was continental style in the chateaux. Cereal, cheese, bread, tea, yogurt. It was good. We could have ordered some Saucisson or Jambon but we didn’t. It was 14 euros each for breakfast. After breakfast I called Dwight on Skype to let him know we were on our way to Geneve. The plan is to meet him at the departures bridge at the airport.

This morning it is still quite cool (7 C) but the sun is shining and the clouds look like they might be breaking up. We are on the road at 8:30 headed for Geneve to have lunch with Dwight.

We met Dwight at the airport as planned and let him take over the driving. Laurance was not able to join us as she was not feeling well. Dwight said she had been having some bad morning sickness. He took us to downtown Geneve and we walked around the old walled city and past the giant fountain out in the lake. The fountain shoots a hundred feet into the air and the wind makes it look like the sail on a boat as it comes back down.

We had a wonderful lunch at a small restaurant in the old part of town called Brasserie du Bourg-de-Four. Jane and I had Roesti with Jambon, Ouefs (eggs), and fromage. It was delicious!! Kaia had some bowtie pasta with parmesan cheese basil and ham. Josh had a ham and cheese omlette. We were stuffed. Cost for lunch for 5 of us was 123.70 Swiss Francs. Dwight reminded me that I did not need to leave a tip, that throughout europe gratuities were built into the price. For exceptional service you might round up and leave a couple extra euros. This means that a couple of people have really gotten good tips from me along the way! While we were eating lunch Laurance called to see if we wanted to stop by their house for some dessert.

We had a very short visit and some desert with Dwight and Laurance and then took off toward Zermatt. The drive was very scenic, especially the last 30km. There were lots of waterfalls along the way and we began to suspect that they had had snow here recently. We drove the car to Tasch and parked it in the lot. Then we took a 20 minute train ride into the town of Zermat. There are only electric carts in the town. A porter from the hotel met us at the train station and drove us to the hotel.

The Park Hotel Beausite is spectacular, really, really spectacular! We have the center suite with a little cupola that sticks above the rest of the hotel with a 360 degree view of the mountains surrounding us. For all the clouds and bad weather we have had the last two days we are in luck today. All the clouds have dissipated and left us with a spectacular view of the Matterhorn! We are all really excited about the room and the wonderful views. I wish we could stay here several days just to relax.

At dinner we learned that while we were visiting castles in the Loire Valley, Zermatt was getting 15cm of fresh snow! In fact we learned that many of the roads leading to Tasch were closed the day before, so we were lucky we didn’t try to come a day earlier! Today there is still snow on many of the rooftops and in their gardens. Everything has greened up and so the snow looks very clean and white against the spring green.

Dinner at the hotel was a five course feast! It was barbecue night so the menu went as follows:

1. Cream of vegetable soup
2. Fish course, they had a wide assortment of fresh fish to choose and then they grill it for you. (Josh: John Dorry, Jane: Red Mullet, Brad: Blue Marlin)
3. Salad course
4. meat course, again they had a huge assortment of meats beef, veal, ostrich, wild boar, rabbit, pork, turkey, chicken, etc. to choose.
5. Cheese course
6. Desert course including Creme Caramel, A Citrus ice cream with vodka, a fuit plate, or a banana split.

Dinner took from 8:45 until almost 11:00. So we went back to the room, and looked at the mountains some more. We played a round of 500 and then took some long exposure pictures of the matterhorn. I think they turned out pretty nice.