hello- My parents are coming to visit for the first time and my father wants to go see the Matterhorn. We live in the Eastern part of Switzerland so we will be traveling about four hours to get there. We heard it's hard to get to and if you want to take the train from here to there it's about $250 a person. We don't want to scale it but we want to go and make it a worthwhile trip. Are there good restaurants or any neat things to do while you are there? Do you have to pay anything to get to a certain point to look at it? What's the deal?

Zermatt is where you get the train to the Matterhorn, it is probably one of the biggest ski resorts in Switzerland. Yes, there is plent of restaurants there and lots of things to do, if you like to do mountain things. Not sure what time of year you are going. But hiking around there is great (you can take the train up and hike down) with amazing views. The couple of times I have been there I have hiked from different starting points and ended up on Gornegrat. There is a restaurant at Gornegrat that has amazing views. They have hotel too but I am sure that is very expensive.


You can see the Matterhorn from Zermatt. Of course, to tâke the train up to a better viewing area costs money, it is possible to walk up if you are extremely fit but probably would not recommend it.

I agree with dakman it is something special, it is lovely up there and if i could i would live near zermatt......xxxx hope you have a great time...

zermatt is now one of my most favourite places... the skiing is fantastic, but the sight of the matterhorn is spectacular... it simply stands out, literally from all the other mountains...I even had a view of the top of the matterhorn from my hotel in zermatt, but it may be worth looking at chalets/hotels slightly further on the outskirts of zermatt to get better views - and they may be a little cheaper too. The actual town is quite touristy, but has the benefit that no petrol cars are permitted on the streets, so the town is full of electric buggy type vehicles, and in winter it naturally focusses on skier market, but there are a host of great restaurants and everyone speaks english.

I am really looking forward to going back in the summer to go hiking in the region. (the plan is that next year i want to climb the tourist route up the matterhorn - but you need a high level of fitness and it costs a bomb!)

Agreed, a magical place. I spent two weeks in a holiday-flat in Täsch the last village before Zermatt. We took the train, and walked up to Zermatt and back on several occasions - that was in July. So it depends when they are coming. It is a bit far for a day-trip. They do have lots of places to see and especially if your parents are interested in the mountain history. Lots of restaurants also and smaller hotels. Why not go up for a week-end? Costs some money, but you surely get your money's worth over driving there for a day.

travel less time and go see the Eiger. You could also go up the Jungfraujoch but beware - it costs...!

Get your Dad the Eiger Sanction on DVD before you go. Visit the hotel opposite the Eiger where they filmed.

Or get the DVD of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and go up the Schilthorn.

The Matterhorn is really something special. Instead of 250$ per person for
a train, rent a car for a couple of days.

We have visited Zermatt both in winter and summer, and it is fun
every time. Zermatt is kind of touristy but worth the while.

Cheers

Funny...I also wanted last weekend, finally after 5 years living in CH, to go and see the Matterhorn, but as soon as I checked the train ticket price I decided not to go...

totally agree, if you have a car load of people especially ones without the half fare card, I would recommend driving to Tasch. You can take the train from there or do as I did and pay 8 francs a day (I believe) to park and the guy gives you a free lift in the shuttle to Zermatt, he drops you outside of the car free zone.

Thanks so much! My parents will be here next month and I think I have a better idea now. My husband has been here his whole life and has never seen it.

Question: If I take the train from Zurich to Zermatt and want to hike up to better views of the Matterhorn, will I need to hike through 10 inch snow or is the landscape similar to Zurich (not in the mountians). Just curious for planning...

I don't know if you are aware of the half-fare card with SBB? My husband and I have it. It is 150 per year and it pays for itself pretty quickly. There is a day pass that you can buy with the half fare card where you can go pretty much anywhere in Switzerland for around 50 francs.
There is also a card for children traveling with an adult. You pay 20 francs for a year and the child can travel with an adult for free. Of course, the adult must have a paid ticket.

I think the car idea would be cheaper for you but for anyone else reading this the half price card may be a good idea.

We have it and use it all the time.

If you decide to go with a rental maybe the sixti is the economic way to do so

$49 per day when reserved with enough time in advanced.

http://www.sixti.com

But you'd have to pickup the car in Zürich and give it back there too.

When I had my parents visiting I made the whole tour of Switzerland and with a car and It was way cheaper than with train. But alas, I was driving all the time and finished the trip exhausted, but it was worth the work.

Thanks again! We'll drive- my husband is just a pain in the neck about driving everywhere. He would rather see it on T.V.

The altitude is much higher, thus you would only have snow free hike in probably June, July, August and part of September. Here is the link for the webcams. The one here is from Gornegrat which is at about 3000 meters I think.

http://bergbahnen.zermatt.ch/e/web-cam/topin.html

The riffleberg one is beautiful

http://bergbahnen.zermatt.ch/e/web-cam/riffelberg.html

For some cheaper ways to get around Switzerland, see the thread "Travel passes for visitors".

I went to Gornergrat, so you see the Matterhorn to the right as you travel up. At the top you can then take cable cars, skiing etc.
It's a must!

I went there yesterday. The trainfare zurich-brigg was 160chf and then visp-zermat was 66chf. (i guess you can buy them as one, i didn't realise I could buy just one ticket).

the train from zurich-brigg was very boring, no good scenery, . the long tunnel was an experience/impressive but its just a tunnel...

From visp (rather than brigg) I took the glacier express. I dont know much about trains but it seemed a narrower gauge than normal with a cog in the middle. train was wobbley
(the previous day I took the glacier express from chur-st moritz which was a fantastic trip, so maybe i'm being harsh).

the route is up a single valley, no big tunnels but the valley walls are pretty imposing. lots of olde worlde swiss houses to photograph.

I arrived in Zermatt around 12noon, wandered around for 10minutes (it was -1 and snowing) looked into the gornergrat ticket office and it was packet out with the blue rinse mob, so wandered around some more. my impression was lots of cheap hotels, a mcdonalds (why??) and funny electric taxis (golf carts maybe?).
Went back to the gornergrat ticket office and stumped up the 54chf return fare.

Sat at the front of the train, by this time heavy snow, visibility down to 10 meters and getting colder . A good 30minute journey to the top. At the top, it was minus 7, couldn't see a thing and some god awful shopping mall (with a telescope on top??) ..tell me.. who the **** wants to by a handbag 3200meters up a mountain???

I will try it again in the summer, but hope never to go there when its cold

LMAO! You're freaking hilarious! So you took the train from Zurich then and it only cost you that much? Do you have one of those half-fare cards? My husband does not want to make the drive. For Americans four hours is nothing but here in Switzerland it's like "OMG I've got to get a hotel somewhere and take a break!"

I could drive back but technically I'm not legally able to drive here and he's all panicky about me on the autobahn. I am a waaay better driver then he is, in fact I'm pretty sure that we will possibley die when we get in the car together.

I told him we should go and get it out of the way the first weekend my parents get here . But we're driving to Italy the week after so...we'll see. It's the only thing my dad asked to see and he could care less about how to make cheese and eating sausage. I guess he thinks the Matterhorn is the Grand Canyon of Switzerland.

So you say it's probably nicer if it's not to cold. Hopefully it won't be when we go. I don't think they want to go up it, maybe just get a view. I didn't even know they had a train to get up there. They only allow electric cars there due to pollution but they allow one gas truck to come in and bring stuff per day or something. I heard that alot of rich people live there. I'm not so sure I would want to go 2300 feet up any mountain for a handbag, no matter how cute it is. I suppose it's something to do. Those with excess money need excess places to spend it right? Let me know about the train ticket if it was the half fare card or what not? I appreciate you posting to this and thanks for the laugh!

those prices where from the machines on the station. I don't have a half-fare card, but am going to buy one now...

(monday was a public holiday, so that may have made a difference)

I guess you could go to any station and enter the journey details to get a price for that day or future date.