Zermatt

Saturday March 11

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It was off to Zermatt this morning on the 9:15am train ex Stuttgart - we had to change in Karlsruhe then Bern then Visp. Disaster struck in Bern - Dieter left our backpack with all our electronics, papers, keys, jewellery, etc on the train at Bern. In spite of a valiant last second dash back to the train it pulled out with our backpack on board. We were quite distressed all the way to Visp so Dieter decided the best was for him to stay behind in Visp and see if he could get the SBB (Swiss Rail) staff to locate it while I continued onto Zermatt.

As it came to pass the lady in VIsp called Interlacken (the end station of the Bern train) while Dieter caught the next train to Zermatt. While on the train the VIsp lady (Adriana) called me and said the backpack had been located but we either had to pick it up in the next 24 hours or file an online claim and request it be shipped to Zermatt.

To cut a long story short - we opted for the online claim and low and behold the backpack was returned to Zermatt; however, the process took until Thursday afternoon. In the mean time we did not have my MacBook so this section of the blog will be summarised at a later date.

We settled into our apartment right in the center of Zermatt - only a few minutes walk to the station, main street and two grocery stores. We did some grocery shopping and stayed home for cold cuts.

Sunday March 12

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It was an amazing sunny day with a village high of 12C - it would stay like this all week. We decided to take the day to get organised after the previous day’s disaster. We did more shopping including a “plug compatible” iPhone charger (which cost $75 - will have to send this to the Guinness book of records) - we needed it as all our chargers and adaptors were in the missing backpack. We also bought our ski passes (5 days for me and one for Dieter) and hired our skis and boots. So we could get some execise and enjoy the wonderful weather we hiked up to one of favourite haunts, Blatten, for lunch

Monday - Friday, March 13-17

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We skied Monday and Dieter did just great - we stayed high up on the easier slopes - the sun and conditions were great. Dieter decided he could ski all week - so things were looking up. We did one trip to the Gornergrat and one to the Klein Matterhorn. When Dieter called SBB on Wednesday and they said the backpack was on it’s way, we celebrated with French Champagne. When he finally picked it up on Thursday afternoon - he was all smiles.

Dieter had been suffering with a cold since Stuttgart and once in Zermatt I succumbed as well - so we both were under the weather all week. 

Saturday March 18

We left on the 9:37 train for Geneva changing in Visp and arrived at 1:30pm. We walked to our hotel, The Hotel Rotary,  an M-Gallery, about 10 minutes walking even with all our luggage.


wi© Patricia Schafer 2017