Gornergrat: Better vista social club

Going straight up a slope, however, generally remains left to the many climbers and hikers who swarm to towns such as Zermatt to make the most of the beauty and the sporting potential of the countryside.

Cog railways – where there’s a central rack rail that meshes with cog wheels on the underside of the train – are one way to tackle this challenge and there is just such a facility – the highest open-air railway in Europe – to take tourists from Zermatt up to the Gornergrat, a ridge from which the Gorner Glacier and the east face of the Matterhorn provide spectacular focal points for photographs.

Perhaps the most striking feature of all is the imposing Kulmhotel Gornergrat – Europe’s highest-altitude hotel at 3 100m and, with it’s high stone walls, a building begging to be the location for a murder mystery film. The hotel, being in a largely pollution-free zone (Zermatt, far below, is the closest town, but it’s fairly small as well as being car-free, so the air is clear) also features an astronomical observatory, which is slightly more interesting for the world-weary traveller than another curio shop.

The Kulmhotel features both an astronomical observatory and the Bernhard von Aosta chapel. Pictures: Bruce Dennill

Interestingly, what muck there is in the air comes all the way from Africa: some of the brown streaks visible on the surrounding glaciers are caused by dust from the Sahara, carried by high-altitude winds and then dumped when those winds are broken up by huge geographical structures like the Alps.

In winter the whole area is covered in snow and a number of pistes can be reached on foot if visiting the Gornergrat. In summer the winch stations for the various ski lifts stand as lonely sentinels over the rocky slopes. Some might feel that the latter is thus a less spectacular time to visit, but in the warm weather the hotel’s sun terrace and outside restaurant seating areas provide the opportunity to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee in some of the most spectacular surroundings you’re ever likely to be able to visit without wearing climbing gear or skis.

The Gornergrat cog railway train has been built to
allow passengers to stand and sit on flat surfaces rather than pitching forward or backward.

If you’re not going to stick around at the summit for more than a morning or afternoon (rooms in the Kulmhotel will set you back upwards of R4 000 a night, so that’s a distinct possibility), it’s worth considering a slow walk down to Zermatt. Along the way, you may spot an ibex, and you’ll almost certainly see a marmot (a large species of squirrel that is to Switzerland what dassies are to South Africa).

There’s a tiny chapel perched on a rise halfway down and, once you get towards the bottom, you’ll hit a belt of Alpine forest, which will add another facet to the experience.

These routes are popular enough that many of them are paved once you get to the edge of town, and it’s only a 10- or 15-minute walk from there to anywhere else in Zermatt.