Travelblog from around the World

The shortest way to Zermatt, which is home to Matterhorn, was over the 2005 meters high Simplon pass, which connects the Swiss Rhone valley and Italian Lago Maggiore. As we got higher and higher, the area became more white and just over 2000 meters where we reached the summit of the pass, meters high snow covered the grasslands. Welcome in Winterwonderland!

We followed the road down on the other side and with a little detour through the Vispertal tunnel we reached our destination for today, Tasch. This is the place where the road ends. Because Zermatt is restricted for cars, Tasch is actually not more than a train station and loads and loads of parking lots for foreign cars.
After a relatively cold night on higher altitude we got our bikes again and covered the last 6km. up to Zermatt. The sun was shining on a cloudless blue sky…we could not have planned a better day to soak in the breathtaking views of Mount Matterhorn (4478mt.). Just excellent! As Zermatt is actually meant for the rich and famous, we still could enjoy a much overprized coffee before heading back down to Tasch where we packed and steered in direction Kandersteg.

There are 2 options to get to Kandersteg from Tasch.
1 270km. of asphalt.
2 45km. asphalt and 25km. train tracks.

From Goppenstein to Kandersteg, the Swiss built a massive tunnel through the mountains which shortens the way by 3 hours. A nice experience too, so we choose the 2nd. option obviously.
We got to the other side very smoothly and prepared ourselves for a long hike into the Berner Oberland Alps. In Kandersteg we wanted to do some hiking, but as we already thought on the Simplon pass, late snowfall thwarted our hiking plans. We still hiked our way up kriskrossing underneath winter skilifts and reached lake Oeschinen in frozen conditions., where we actually expected to see a turquiose mountainlake. Still an impressive sight though. From here we surrendered to Mother Nature and walked back to the camping.

From Kandersteg we drove east towards Zurich and made a small detour to Grindelwald where Eddy had been last year with Eelco. Every time when you have the possibility, Grindelwald is a must-do to visit just for the mighty 1000 meter drop of the Eiger North Face. Also here we pushed ourselves out of breath on our bikes and after a well deserved iced cold beer we drove to Brienz for our last camping stop on this trip. We stayed the night on a beautiful spot near lake Brienz.

This camping suffered from huge floods in 2005. They rebuild the hole place into one of the most modern camping we’ve seen so far.

Next morning we drove the last 100km. to Zurich were we were catching up with Sandra. Because we arrived Fridays and Sandra had to work still, we first explored Zurich ourselves on this sunny day. We did some sightseeing of the Fraumuenster and Lindenhof area with some relaxing at the Platzspitz in between. It became a more than pleasant day. That evening we met Sandra downtown and after a walk over the Zurichberg with splendid views over the city and a self baked pizza home, we prepared for the night.

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Next morning we went by car to a village called Fischental were we set off for a daylong hike in this rugged area around Zurich. The weather did not play along with us. It was not cold, but clouds blocked our view which we could have when the sun would shine so we decided to cut the hike earlier as planned and have dinner in Wald from where we took a train back to the car.

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Early next morning after breakfast and a hug, we drove the way back to Amsterdam in once where we arrived around dinnertime. A great week went by in just a wink of the eye!