Zermatt;The love story continued...

Now that we have reached Zermatt before the clouds, we tried to win the race to Klein Matterhorn too.But the Cable car station is at the other end of the little village.As I have already mentioned Zermatt is entirely car-free.A few battery driven taxis and horse driven carriages are seen at the station.But the main street is for pedestrians.And we started to walk.

The town (or village?) is in itself very different from any other town I have been.There is a strange tranquility in the air that will at once make your nerves relax.The main street is sometimes quite crowded.But the crowd is only of pedestrians.

Absence of cars can make a place so different.There are all the world famous brands and the boutiques are often pricy.But all of them have one thing in common.They are inside very old looking wooden houses.In the whole place there seems to be no modern house.Beautifully decorated wooden houses are alternated by some very old (restored), darkened wooden houses which look like they will fall down  and break into pieces if someone just puts a step inside.
But inside one of them you will find Macdonalds, inside another a shop of the priciest Swiss watches....

We, however,didn't have time to stop and watch.We walked as fast as we could.After a while the street becomes steep and there you cross the beautiful old village,the strange looking houses which seems to belong to history and just put there for a show.And yet you know people live there...and there must be quite modern facilities available inside.

Later, I came to know that this street is know as Hinterdorfstrasse.These houses are mostly 17th and 16th century houses and are often used as barns to store grains and food like sausages.That explains why they are all standing on supporting posts which are often a pile of stone slabs.This was to protect the foods stored from rodents.
The road comes down to the little Vispa river that flows through the middle of Zermatt.There are little log bridges which you have to cross to reach the cable car station.There we bought the tickets(which are actually quite costly(82 CHF),but we had the half pass and payed only 45CHF per head.).
Inside the cable car station, there are little automated glass boxes called Gondolas which are constantly coming in a row but wont stop.So you have to just climb on one of them while they slow down...The first stop is at Furi.From there you have to climb a larger cable car which can take a lot of passengers.It takes you to the mountain stop of Trockner steg.From there starts the last patch of the journey in another cable car.
From Zermatt to Furi,the little romantic gondolas take you above the town and the green fields.Some of the fields also look entirely purple or yellow from above.They are filled with little flowers.

From Furi to Trockner Steg,the cable car is less cozy but the scene begins to change and you start getting glimpse of ice.
From Trockner Steg the cable car takes you into a dramatic journey soaring thousand feets above the glacier and you suddenly find yourself in the midst of a world of eternal ice.White and white every where and you are in the sky looking at it from a soaring eagle's angle.

There is a tunnel and another lift at the Klein Matterhorn station and this takes you to the view point at 3825 m(12,549.21 feet) above sea level.

And finally there we were, standing at the view point with full view of Matterhorn and almost 40 other peaks which were about 4000m high.The Panorama was overwhelming...the stretch of white around us and the slightly dizzying thin air...we felt if we stretched our arms a little we would touch some angel over there...for it certainly seemed their territory.

The sky was still blue with the proud peaks showing off their grandeur in full display.

We have won the race with the clouds!!