Day 9: It is the Matterhorn....trust me!

Day dawned clear this morning, or at least much clearer than yesterday. I opened the door to our balcony and could see the tops of the mountains!

We ate a little for breakfast, but had gotten up at 6:20 so we weren't that hungry. We walked down to the Gornergrat cog railroad station and bought our tickets to the top. We were on the 8:00am train, which left right on time (it is Switzerland). At the first stop, some adorable friends joined us!

The Matterhorn.  Or some of it.

Only trouble was, when we got to Rotenboden, the next to the last stop, they announced it was the end of the line, everyone off.  Seems there were electrical problems further up.  Only problem was, there is NOTHING at the Rotenboden station.  No indoor building except the bathroom.  There was a view of the mountains, including most of the Matterhorn.  But there was not another train coming by to go down for more than 1/2 an hour.  So we took pictures, watched the hikers march off across the mountains, and shivered.  It was 28 degrees and snow flurrying!  I know that must sound good to those in the DC heatwave, but for us it was cold.  Eventually, the station manager felt sorry for Ellen, me and 4 Japanese tourists and allowed us to go into his office.

We got on the return train and rode back down to Zermatt.  It dawned on us that we had paid to go to the top but hadn't, and there is a 10 Swiss franc difference per ticket.  We went back to the window, and got our 20 franc refund!

We went back to the hotel, packed up and got a cab back down to our car.  Back on the road again, this time to Lausanne.

We got to our hotel, the Hotel Angeleterre and checked in.  A nice 4 star hotel, but we had been spoiled.

Lausanne city hall

Our hotel is in Ouchy and the whole Lausanne/Ouchy area is one big hill up from Lake Geneva.  So we asked about public transport, and found that our hotel is right next to a metro stop, and easily navigated up about 5 stops to begin the walking tour.  Saw the normal churches, squares and a nice town hall.

We stopped at a cafe recommended by Rick Steves and had a delicious hot chocolate.  We then took the subway back to the Ouchy.  While the Olympic Museum was closed fothe day, our hotel was only 200 meters away, so we decided to walk down there.  I'm glad we did.

There are lots of sculptures on the grounds, and they had the Olympic record high jump and pole vault heights displayed.  Pretty amazing to stand next to them.  They also had shot puts out.  I could barely lift the men's one.  Randy Barnes must have been some beast (and undoubtedly hopped up on steroids).

We had tired a bit of Swiss style food, and luckily found a Japanese restaurant, Ichiban just a block from our hotel.  We shared teriyaki chicken and beef, sat outside as it got cool, and enjoyed our last evening in Switzerland.