Finally went to Zermatt and hated it on the spot. A Disneyland-like rip-off mile runs through the town, displaying its expensive wares to the hoardes of tourists walking through it. No real authentic Swiss charm anywhere.

We ate at an Italian restaurant in the middle of the town. The service was slow, snobby and the pizza was soupy. The waiters ignored us, preferring to talk to each other. They even had a chef de service that just stood there and smiled.

But wait, I did find some places where Switzerland's authenticity shines through.

I found it in three places.

1. The Coop, located near the train station in a mall. It was packed with tourists because this is the only place you won't get ripped off. Coop promises to keep their prices the same in every village in Switzerland. And it was true.

2. The end of the village (near the Matterhorn Express) had some very lovely, authentic restaurants advertising typical Swiss menus at reasonable prices. Some even had a view of the Matterhorn.

3. The top restaurant of the Matterhorn Express. The prices were reasonable, the food typical Swiss, and I felt very much at home in this unpretentious restaurant.

And I loved watching all the outdoorsmen with their hiking boots or skis.

This is my personal opinion and I expect a lot of you will have a different one.

Doesn't sound like you had a terrible time.

You think that it is a rip off on the main street, then you should try St Moritzy.

Personally I love Zermatt.

So, business as usual, then?

Oh God! What fresh hell is this?!!!! I will sacrifice myself upon the alter of expediency here and volunteer to head a commission to understand this horrible problem! I will, as distasteful as it sounds, gracefully (and humbly) accept the grossly bloated...ahem...uh...modest paycheck entailed in performing said service. I imagine that it should take several years for my minions to gather the necessary public input.

That's what the waiter said when we politely mentioned the pizza was leaking fluid.

Never been there in the summer...but in winter is paradise for me....slopes nice and wide....ahhh...awesomeness!

Can't say I have much love for Zermatt as a place, but the area is stunning.

The main street is truely awful, tacky and ripoffsville. But then its one of the tourist places to vist in Switzerland so what do you expect.

St. Moritz is just as bad but in a totaly different way.

Are you sure you hadn't stumbled into a special gastronomic event?

hm... reasonable prices ...a feature quite rare

From my blog, last summer: The town is fake: the mountains around it are not. If you hike, climb or ski, you get to enjoy the mountains But if you stay in town, all you get is the fakeness

Not sure what a bad Pizzeria has to do with Zermatt, they're all over Switzerland. We have tens of thousands of Italians here in Switzerland, not sure why it's so hard to get a good one (edit: pizza that is, not Italian). They're probably like the Chinese who decided we prefer bad, overpriced food instead of authentic cuisine.

I beg to differ (and not just for the sake of argument, either): Although I've not yet been to Zermatt, I've spent time in Interlaken which is also a tourist town full of cuckoo clocks and yodelling toys.

Interlaken is nothing like Glarus or Brunnen or Solothurn, but it is no more fake than any of these towns. It is what it is, and what it is is a direct product of the history of Switzerland over the last 150 years or so.

Switzerland owes a lot to places like Zermatt and Interlaken, towns that brought tourists in, swept fresh air into stagnant Alpine regions that, up until the arrival of British visitors in their new-fangled steam trains, had been some of the poorest parts of Europe.

To dislike Zermatt is to dislike Blackpool, to dislike Benidorm, to dislike Agia Napa. All of these towns are associated with tourist tackiness and some indefinable quality of 'fakeness', yet they have brought a great deal of prosperity to the people who live there and the surrounding areas.

Personally, I love tourist towns as much as I love Switzerland's secrets (like the aforementioned Glarus, my favourite canton in the Confederation). I don't expect them to represent the lives of ordinary Swiss any more than I'd expect Stratford upon Avon to represent the lives of ordinary Midlanders, but they do exactly what they say on the tin, and bring a great deal of happiness to people in the process.

So I shall raise my glass to Zermatt, just because it is what it is. And I hope I'll get chance to visit it, and waste lots of money there, soon!

Yodellollollollollooooo!

Next time try Niagarafalls

Some unexpected wisdom there!
Oh and by the way, Swiss people love Zermatt, St. Moritz just as much as foreigners do, and they don't necessarily feel it's fake. There have always been modern interpretation to traditional chalets, and aren't really just imitations for tourists. These tourist towns are not really to my taste either, but that's just because I like more quiet, cheap places.

I liked Blackpool, it reminded me a magazine in UK I used to read..What was it.... Bizarre Magazine? I lived in Blackpool for quite a while, funny place.

I have to say I liked Zermatt because of the mountains and fresh air, it's good to ignore all the tackiness around.

I can relate to your comments on the service in Swiss restaurants. We are really spoiled here in the US. I had an issue at the hotel in Zermatt 2 years ago where they wanted me to pay extra despite having prearranged and prepaid for my stay weeks in advance. Very annoying and petty.
To me the Zermatt area is still absolutely stunning. The friends that came with me were speechless.
If you want a less touristy place have you tried the parallel Anniviers valley and go to an unspoiled village like the lovely Grimentz for example. it is beautiful and off the beaten path. People still speak the local dialect. Very cool.
This is just an example there are dozens of other neat spots that are not on the Kuoni/Thomas Cook routes and where the restaurants are still run by locals that care.

Agreed, Zermatt main street is pretty commercial. It is far more than the shops. It has some of the most stunning scenery in Switzerland. What can be more authentic Swiss charm than The Matterhorn?

A walk to Z'mutt from Zermatt should convert most people.

Thank you so much for this! It corresponds exactly to what I have said in many travel forums. Still, there are people who don't want to believe it. Could you therefore post your contribution in such forums, too? One that is read worldwide is Tripadvisor. Thanks.

Or Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, or Basel's Freie Strasse, for that matter :-)

That speaks volumes about the rest of Zermatt's prices!


In relation to St. Moritz, I remember reading a snowboarding guidebook to Europe's entry discribing how awful the town is - along the lines of:
"Basically St Moritz town is a bit like finding a housing estate from Peckam inexplicably adrift in this heavenly alpine wonderland"