We're now in Zermatt, near the Italian border, a skiing resort village, which is very like Queenstown, with lots of tourist shops, and wooden and shist/stone buildings.
It's a bit bigger than we expected and a lot more commercialised which is slightly disappointing. Lots of building work going on, as this is the off season, but there are still a lot of tourists around.
The old houses in Zermatt are raised off the ground on beams with large stone plates - which overhang the poles and prevent the mice from climbing up.

Zermatt is a car-less village. What that really means is that all the taxis and trades vehicles are electric - and they zip silently around the streets. It also means there are a lot of bicycles so between the electric vehicles and the bikes there is a lot of traffic to avoid - and because it's quiet traffic you don't hear it coming, so you have to be even more careful which in some ways is worse. What you can hear coming are the horse drawn carriages that have bells on.

The Matterhorn mountain is the iconic image associated with Zermatt - a lot like a sharks tooth. A unique shape, that is very photographic and seeing it in person is the key reason for our visit here. It definitely does not disappoint. The mountain itself is very impressive, and there are great views from the village. we are looking forward to taking some great photo's here, as after some email correspondence with Olympus and manually moving all the lense connection points the camera is now working again. Fingers crossed it remains that way.

Sarah saw a Toblerone sign today and realised that the mountain on the Toblerone packet is the Matterhorn - a good reason to buy some she thought, and as it happens to be some of my favourite chocolate it was hard to argue, so we did.

After having quite an early lunch on the train as we travelled here we found ourselves rather peckish at 3pm as we had our first look around. Switzerland is definitely as expensive as we'd heard, so we've mainly been using the supermarkets and the bakeries, but with only a few more days left here and surrounded by a multitude of restaurants, pubs and bars it seemed to me like the ideal time to try some traditional Swiss food.The kids really just wanted an Icecream and Darryl was keen for a beer, but I wanted to try a Raclette and the fondue, so we found a place that covered all bases and put in our rather eclectic order, (though I'm sure they are well used to foreigners doing weird stuff like that).

Raclette is a fried cheese that is traditionally served with potatoes, gherkin and pickled onions. It arrived fairly quickly and everyone was keen to try it. We all enjoyed it and it was a shame there wasn't more, especially as there was quite a wait for the fondue and the icecreams/sorbets. The cheese fondue came to the table with a gas burner to keep it warm - and a small basket of bread. We all tried it, it was a slightly tangy cheese and Darryl said - that's disgusting, but tried it again just to be sure, followed by "You paid 24chf for that?!". The kids all tried it and thought it was just OK and we all agreed that it was good to try it but once was enough and it wasnt something we would want to order again.

Darryl had been trying the swiss beers and a few red wines over the last 10 days. When I asked his opinon he said I'm not 100% sure on the beer - I'll have to have another', so we'll take that as pretty satisfactory. Generally speaking we've found the food available at the supermarkets to be good. 50 cent blocks of chocolate delighted the children, but there have been little in the way of condiments/chutneys to Darryls disappointment. Salami or cured ham and cheese were our staple lunch ingredients - Darryl said yesterday that it might be a while before he eats them again when we get back home.

April: The Fondue was meh, and the sorbet wasnt great either.
Sarah: The fondue wasn't that nice. Zermatt is bigger than Mum told us.
Scott: I saw some cool slingshots and I'm going to buy one.