Day 9

When: July 19, 2024
Where: Zermatt, Bettmeralp

Time to move again. With the train problems between Zermatt and Täsch (pronounced Tish, I found out), I knew the first part of the day would be organized chaos. Recall from my previous post: it’s train from Zermatt to Täsch, bus transfer from Täsch to Visp, and then train to wherever you’re going from there. All in all it wasn’t too bad, and there are worse things than taking bus or train trips through Swiss valleys.

I knew I wanted to give my legs a chance to recover today; the first Zermatt hike wiped out my Going Downhill muscles and yesterday’s took out my Going Uphill ones. I’ve been conscious of NOT damaging my muscles and putting myself out of commission. This happened on my first trip to Switzerland, when I hiked down from Harder Kulm in Interlaken, which was ~2400 feet. Worse, I was pushing harder than I should’ve been, since I’d purchased a 2pm SuperSaver train ticket. This killed any sort of hiking activity for the rest of that trip, since even stepping off a curb hurt!

I made my way via trains, bus, and cable car to the top of Bettmeralp.

Tourists queue to board a gondola at an outdoor station; backdrop features forested mountains, metal structure, and Subaru Crosstrek advertisement.

Fortunately my room was ready at 12:30.

Rustic bedroom with a double wooden bed, light green bedding, black-and-white skiing photo on the wall, and pine-paneled furniture.

I took my time settling in to my room, then strolled up the main street to peer at lunch menus. I enjoyed one of the BEST roast beef sandwiches I’ve ever had, on the terrace of a restaurant named Alpina. It was roast beef, coleslaw, and a thin-ish slice of parmesan cheese, with some sort of sauce. The fries were excellent, too, but that’s kind of standard for Switzerland I’ve found.

Outdoor table with black tray holding herb-crusted burger (toothpick), French fries bowl, glass of white wine, ketchup and mayonnaise bottles, cutlery.

Walking back from lunch I made my now-obligatory stop at Coop and bought my chocolate crackers and a Coke Zero. The rest of the afternoon was me doing everything in my power not to hop on a lift or go on a hike. I caught up on yesterday’s journal entry, started on today’s, and followed the global Crowdstrike IT issue that was causing Windows machines to have problems. In that regard today was a good day for not working in corporate IT anymore.

Wooden patio with wicker chair holding Coca-Cola bottle, striped lounge chairs, large umbrellas, and snow-capped mountains beyond green lawn and evergreen trees. Round wooden dining table with open laptop showing code; rustic interior features exposed beams, dining chairs, and a distant fireplace.

Tomorrow I’ll revisit the Aletsch glacier, this time closer up the valley to it. I didn’t set out to find this glacier the first time I visited Riederalp. It sounds insane, but I was hiking and literally just happened upon it. Tomorrow I’m looking for a decent hiking trail near me and it just so happens to be even closer to the glacier, with better views. I keep stumbling into fun things on this trip.

I looked back through some of my previous entries and I’m happy to report that the coughing woman on the Lauterbrunnen train did not make me sick. Possibly moving seats halfway through helped. We’ll never know. My comments from day 7 regarding loneliness still stand. The older I’ve become, the more convinced I’ve become that it’s the people that matter, not the places. And right now I have places but not people.

This is the place that had the kick-ass sandwich: Alpina

Switzerland 2024 Day 9

Moving to car-free Bettmeralp and the best roast beef sandwich

Day 9