Places/Switzerland

Valais

Zermatt

A car-free town under the Matterhorn. Switzerland is not in the Union, and the mountain does not care.

Zermatt banned most cars, which is why it still feels like a village when the peak is clear and like a queue of ski jackets when it is not. You come for the Matterhorn and you stay for the paths and the railway that climbs toward Gornergrat.

Switzerland is Schengen and not the European Union. Cards work. Prices are the ones you have heard about. They are accurate.

See

• The peak from town, more than once

  Cloud is part of the show. A morning when it is clear is luck, not a failure of your itinerary if it is not.

• A railway or a lift, then a walk

  Gornergrat or a cable car toward Schwarzsee. Walk down as far as your knees agreed to this morning.

• The village without shopping

  Early, before the excursion trains. The church, the river, the fact of no cars.

• A lower path if the weather is loud

  The high mountain is not owed to you. The valleys still walk well in a coat.