The Matterhorn

I am SO excited that I have Swiss friends and that they wanted me to come visit them. One of the beauties of traveling is making friends around the world and then you have a place to stay and someone to show you around. Especially since we met when I hosted them couch surfing when they were traveling the US. Opening my home up to some strangers gave me some life long friends, travel buddies and an excuse to visit Switzerland! Which is a really expensive country to visit, so lucky me to have a free place to stay and friends to show me around/ drive me around and feed me. These girls are simply the best. If you would have told me that was going to happen when I decided to host them, I don't know if I would have believed you. I'm super happy about it though. I love these girls.

So when I told them I was finally coming to visit, they asked me what I wanted to do while I was there. Of course I just want to see everything, but my 1 request of what I wanted to see more than anything else was the Matterhorn. It is famous, they even made a ride at Disneyland after it. Of course I want to see the original. As soon as I mentioned it, my friends asked me what my budget was. Apparently it is over $200 just to take a train there. But guess what? My awesome friends found a way to do it cheap for me. They have Swiss passes, they can go anywhere in Switzerland  with that pass. They figured out that they could get a one day guest pass for only $30 and I could go anywhere in Switzerland for the day with that pass. So my first full day in Switzerland, we took a 2ish hour train ride to Zermatt to go see and hike around the Matterhorn. I was super pumped.

When we finally got there, I was instantly in love. Such a charming city! I figured out very quickly why Switzerland has so much hype. It is well deserved. Everywhere you turn looks like a postcard. Truly. So green. So beautiful.

Once we walked through the city, we made our way to the gondola to make our way up the mountains.

We first walked to a lake with a great view of the Matterhorn to have a picnic. A true Swiss picnic with Deb & Alessandra's favorite snacks for when they hike. Swiss bread with Swiss cheese and Swiss chocolate and these amazing Swiss cookies that they also introduced me to. I was a happy hiker. A true Swiss experience right here!

Then we continued on... got closer to the Matterhorn and I took pictures from just about every angle I could with the Matterhorn, as you can see. ha ha. I don't think I have ever taken as many pictures of one mountain before. It was a perfect day with such amazing friends that I missed so much. Happy girl right here.  :)