Published Saturday July 24th, 2004


My family (minus Daniela) and i infront of the Matterhorn. This image could probably use some enhancement to make our faces more visible. The lighting was really poor. However, i'm too lazy to do this now.

Ah! Yes! Today, the weather was lovely! First time in over a week, almost two! We got up, had breakfast, and then at around 1000 we departed our flat. We walked back a bit towards the end of the valley where we then got into small little gondolas, i guess one might call th em in English. Paid a hefty fee for the ticket up and around the area. We first went up to the top of this mountain named Little Matterhorn. It was around 4000m above sea level.

*Phone rings in apartment as Anna calls. She turns 20 today, July 14th. So does her mother, my aunt, Rita. Happy birthday, Anna.*

Anyways, the Little Matterhorn was at around 4000m above sea level, and it was around negative 8 Celsius as well. Mmm, or rather, Brrr.. It was fun and beautiful nonetheless. We got into this elevator and went up to the top, peak of the Little Matterhorn where i took photographs and such various things one does with a camera. There was a lot of light, almost too much light, and it was difficult to get photos because it was so bright. After we descended from the peak, in this underground tunnel, we exited on the backside which was a flat field, or more or less a glacier. There, we went down into this Glacier grotto type thing. Was a bit manufactured for tourists, but, it was still cool being inside, and down below all of this ice.

After some time, we went back down off of the Little Matterhorn, and then ate lunch at some middle-station up to the Little Matterhorn. We took a photo, and finished eating, and then we headed down even more, and then, went back up onto another section of a different type of mountain. This was the lift to a seemingly over glorified lake named the Black lake, or, Schwartzsee. It was this kind of weak little dark green lake down in a little crevasse between a circular area of hill. We walked by the famed Schwartzsee and headed up a bit. From here we were able to see the Matterhorn in all of its glory. When we were on top of the Little Matterhorn, we could also see the Matterhorn, but we saw it from the back side, from the side one sees from Italy, and, well, it was a lot less picturesque and its Matterhorn-like features were much less defined. Thus, i was rather happy to see the Matterhorn from the often pictured sides. I took around 1.5gb of raw photos in this day alone. Comes out to about 220 photos, or there abouts.

Speaking of photos, some of them, as i mentioned before, just don't look very good because there was just too much bright light, and a lot of sun-flares and other annoyances. Surely i'll be able to clean some of them up, make them look nice, and suchlike.. We'll see, ey? Indeed we shall.

at around 1630 we had to rush back down to the gondola station because the last ride down was at 1700 and we didn't really feel like having to do a 2 hour hike downhill back to Zermat. We reached the station in time, and coasted our way back down back into Zermat. We walked for about 10 to 15 minutes and returned to our rental apartment where we recuperated for a bit. I copied photos to my laptop, my mom and Andrea went shopping or spending money, and my dad paid for the apartment rental. After all this, we went and ate dinner. My dad and i shared a Fondue Bourginogne, or Fondue where one dips meat cubes into oil and fries it, then dips the cooked meat in various sauces. It was very good. After Dinner, we returned to our apartment, and, well.. Here i am typing this, soon going to bed.

In fact, i believe i shall go to bed at this point because i have to get up rather early tomorrow..


My family (minus Daniela) and i infront of the Matterhorn.

* Photos have not been altered, and could probably use some white-balancing, contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue adjustments. Oh well.