The Glacier Express

The Glacier Express tickets were reserved on the first day we had arrived with additional cost of 15 franc each from the swiss pass. The train consisted six coaches (the locomotive is not counted), three were the 2nd class, 1 bar and the other 2 were 1st class, which were at the back. The panoramic windows to the roof allowed all the passengers to see to the top of mountains. A guide book of 6 languages was at every seat beside a free headphone. Passengers were mostly located on the window side. Two seats on the aisle side were normally left empty unless there were four people in a group. The train departed Zermatt early morning ( There are roughly about six trains from Zermatt to St. Moritz and Davos every day, check before travel). The food and drink menus were handed. The monitor at the end of each coach showed a number of information point. The number could be found on the map in the guide book as well. As a number was shown, the information was going to be announced through the headphone at each specific location along the route.

The train brought us down to Visp first, then went along the route to St. Moritz. The route was likely to follow a river in a valley and went up to the mountains. At some point the train went through a tunnel to the other side of a mountain and back to the same side. The Glacier Express is also the slowest express train in the world. The distance from Zermatt to St. Moritz is about 270 kms, but a train takes about 7 hour and a half to cover the route. It was a beautiful day this day. The sun was shining through the panoramic windows, mountains were green and lakes, rivers were blue. Villages were beautiful and quiet, cyclists and motorists were travelling on the roads, which curved left and right randomly in a valley. The green of the mountains changed gradually to white because of the snow as the train climbed up higher. We reached the highest point of the route at Oberalppass (2033 m). No more green glass, the dark rocks of the mountain is everywhere and mostly were covered with snow. Thick layers of ice were floating in the lake. Every people were looking outside to enjoy the beautiful scenery, those who were not, might have been only the staffs, who were busy serving lunch.

The train took several hours later climbed down the mountains and arrived at Chur. The locomotive was replaced and travelled into the other direction heading to St. Moritz. Some new passengers boarded the train. Green grass and flowers decorated the scene. This might have been one of the most beautiful place on earth. The train again was going into a valley and climbed up. Now everyone seemed to get ready for the most particular scene, the Landwasserviadukt. No one was seating, everyone was taking at least a photo of this particular view as it was not just a via duct around the corner of their houses. The train went on. I looked at the map and surprisingly found a chaos rail route between Bergun and Preda. It was some sort of engineer works to allow trains to climb up a very high mountains. Less than an hour later, we arrived at St. Moritz, a small town on the hill with a lake in the middle.

Continued with a local bus, we arrived at Youth Hostel on the foot of a mountain. The hostel was big and seemed to be a school in the past. The food was great and refillable. The shadows of the mountain again dim the sunlight. I took a walk along the lake in the evening, smelled the breeze of air. People were fishing beside. I looked across the lake to the station. The Glacier Express was seen in red at the station resting after a long journey.