Zermatt is the car-free village at the foot of the Matterhorn, one of the most recognizable mountains on earth. At 1,620 metres in the upper Valais, it has been drawing mountaineers since the mid-nineteenth century and skiers since the twentieth. The village itself is small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes, but the ski area above it is enormous — 360 kilometres of pistes shared with Cervinia across the Italian border, plus summer glacier skiing on Klein Matterhorn that runs year-round.
The town is surprisingly relaxed for a place with such a famous backdrop. Electric taxis and horse-drawn carriages replace cars. The main street, Bahnhofstrasse, runs from the train station toward the church, lined with sport shops, bakeries, and restaurants. The old village quarter south of the church has dark wooden Valais chalets and granaries raised on stone discs to keep out mice — some dating back centuries. The Mountaineers' Cemetery behind the church tells the harsher side of the mountain's story in a few dozen headstones.
The Gornergrat Railway climbs to 3,089 metres for panoramic views of twenty-nine peaks over 4,000 metres. In summer the hiking is world-class: the Five Lakes Walk near Sunnegga, the Riffelsee with its famous Matterhorn reflection, and the trail to the Hörnli Hut at the base of the Matterhorn's climbing route are all outstanding. The Glacier Paradise cable car to Klein Matterhorn reaches 3,883 metres — the highest cable car station in Europe — where you can step into an ice palace carved into the glacier. The Matterhorn Museum underground in the village centre tells the story of the 1865 first ascent and its catastrophic descent.
Zermatt is expensive, even by Swiss standards. But the combination of that mountain, the car-free quiet, and the sheer scale of the terrain makes it unlike anywhere else in the Alps.