Zermatt, Switzerland Recommendations
Photo by Greyson Howard
At the end of our time in Lauterbrunnen, we hopped on a train for a beautiful 3.5 hour trip to Zermatt. We visited Zermatt back in 2024, and we were so excited to head back. On our first trip, we did a lot of mountain biking, but not any hiking. So for this trip, we were excited to slow down and soak in even more of the scenery.
Where to Stay
Both of our trips, we stayed at the wonderful SCHLOSS Zermatt. The location is amazing - very close to the Zermatt train station and the Gornergrat Bahn and a quick walk to basically anything in Zermatt. They have an amazing breakfast buffet that’s included with your stay. The highlight for me is the incredible spa. While you do have to pay for treatments like a massage or facial, the spa facilities are free for guests to use and are amazing. SCHLOSS Zermatt also has a really nice gym and offers fitness classes. While we were visiting, they were having a special event with free fitness classes, and I was able to take a great yoga class on a rainy morning. If you book directly on their website, you’ll get a free welcome drink at the bar and up to 20% off of your stay! I think it’s worth it to pay a bit more for the Matternhorn View rooms.
Matterhorn view from SCHLOSS Hotel
What to Do
Ride the Gornergrat Bahn up to the Gornergrat Station for incredible views of the Matterhorn, Gornergrat Glacier, and dozens of other peaks. We didn’t have the best weather on this trip (clouds and rainy days), but on our last day we lucked out. It was cloudy and foggy down in Zermatt, but the weather was clear and sunny above the clouds at Gornergrat. We wandered around taking photos and enjoying the views until we had to head down and catch our train to Italy. In addition to hiking around the top station, you can also get off at Gornergrat and hike down to catch the train at a lower station or a variety of other hikes. For a steep but convenient hike right from downtown Zermatt, we wandered up and down Summergadi between rain showers.
For biking, we loved the Sunegga Flow Trail for fun flow with great Matterhorn views. To add a bit more to this ride, we went up a station higher and rode Blauherd to Sunegga. We also loved the views going from Schwarzee to Zermatt. However, I think this trail would be better as a hike - we did a lot of walking our bikes. This trail wasn’t open in 2024 when we had bikes, but I really want to check out the new Blauherd Trail. It looks incredible!
What to Eat
The food in Zematt was so good! We returned to some of our favorites from 2024 and tried new places as well. For great pizza and the best aperol spritzes in Switzerland, I recommend Santa Lucia! It’s also very convenient if you’re staying at SCHLOSS Hotel. Another dinner favorite is Republic Zermatt. The veggie burger is one of the best I’ve had, and I also really enjoyed doing the caesar salad and frites combo. For a quick lunch, we got great sandwiches from both Matterhorn Backerei and Backerei Fuchs Zermatt. I really wanted to have rosti while we were in Switzerland, and our hotel got us a reservation Restaurant Arvestube at Hotel Pollux. I’m glad we did that - the rosti was really good, especially the dish Grey ordered with balsamic onions and baked Scamorza. Finally, I have to recommend visiting Terravigna Wine Shop. We had a fun time tasting Swiss wines and chatting wine with the amazing staff.
Other Recommendations
For traveling throughout Switzerland, I highly recommend the Swiss Half Fare Card, which gets you half off train rides on the Swiss Rail system, as well as on many buses and some other modes of transportation for a month.