Matterhorn

Matterhorn Review

Hordes of package-tour sightseers push shoulder to shoulder to get yet another shot of the Matterhorn (14,685 feet). Called one of the wonders of the Western world, the mountain deserves the title, though it has become an almost self-parodying icon, like the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Its peculiar snaggletooth form, free from competition from other peaks on all sides, rears up over the village, larger than life and genuinely awe-inspiring. As you leave the train station and weave through pedestrian crowds, aggressive electric taxi carts, and aromatic horse-drawn carriages along the main street, Bahnhofstrasse, you're assaulted on all sides by Matterhorn images—on postcards, sweatshirts, calendars, beer steins, and candy wrappers—though not by the original, which is obscured by resort buildings (except from the windows of pricier hotel rooms). But break past the shops and hotels onto the main road into the hills, and you'll reach a slightly elevated spot where you'll probably stop dead in your tracks. There it is at last, its twist of snowy rock blinding in the sun, weathered mazots scattered romantically at its base. Surely more pictures are taken from this spot than from anywhere else in Switzerland.