A winter wonderland in Zermatt

Sometimes I can't believe that BK and I have lived in Switzerland for nearly a year and have yet to go skiing. We made sure to bring all of our ski gear when we moved at the end of March last year, only to realize that ski season was pretty much over when we got here.

Hotel transportation from train station

This was our first ski weekend in Switzerland, and we definitely picked the top of the line place to come: Zermatt. If I'm completely honest, this is probably our last ski weekend of the year too, though. Zermatt is quite the luxury ski resort town. I'm sure it helps that we stayed in a really nice hotel, Grand Hotel Zermatterhof, but we figured as this is our last pre-baby getaway and we haven't done any European travel since November, why not splurge? The hotel was really nice, is centrally located and is around 10 minutes from the train station.

Hotel Zermatterhof

Thursday afternoon when we arrived it was snowing really hard, so we met our friends, bundled up (BK and I needed to add more layers) and went to explore the town. Everything was covered in fresh snow, which was beautiful. It makes it really seem like a winter wonderland and something you see in a book…it's probably what you picture when you think of Switzerland.

Streets of Zermatt

As we were walking along, we stumbled upon a cozy little bar/restaurant that BK found online, The SnowBoat, and took a break from the winter weather to enjoy some cocktails and hot chocolate. The staff was really friendly and we enjoyed watching the Olympics with other visitors there. We didn't have a meal there, but the menu looks really good and offers some unique dishes. Based on our experience, I would think it's at least worth a try for dinner.

BK and CH warming up in the Yacht Club

After we had warmed up some, we ventured back out to explore a little bit more. One thing that we found a little annoying about the streets of Zermatt were the electric car taxis. Zermatt claims to be "car free," but in reality they are not. They are really just gas engine vehicle free. It's nice, as you never have any exhaust smell, but the taxis come very close to running any pedestrian who is in their way right over. It's irritating when you're working to stay upright on slippery streets and you have to quickly get out of the way for these little golf cart cars.

We wanted something easy for dinner, so earlier in the day AH and I looked around for somewhere while BK was renting skis for the next day. We found Pizza and Spaghetti Factory, which was close to our hotel and had a good variety of Italian food. We booked there, and after more walking around town, headed in for a nice dinner.

Lots of snow on Thursday night!

That brought our snowy night to a relatively early end, as we all knew we wanted to get up at a decent time and head up to the ski slopes. Don't panic…I didn't ski. More to come on skiing and our days in the mountains above Zermatt!