Today, we had no official hike scheduled as it was officially our day off. We all decided to go to the Gornerschlucht (Glacier Gorges), which I had been to on my prior trip to Zermatt. Gornerschlucht is a very narrow and deep gorge cut out by a glacial river. The trail through it was a boardwalk literally built into the side of the cliff overlooking the river, pools, and waterfalls. We took the free bus up through Zermatt and then walked a short way to the entrance. Pierre was kind enough to go with us (even though it was a day off for him too) and paid our entry fee.

As I recall, it was a very nice walk through a spectacular gorge. But, it turns out they previously had serious flooding which damaged much of the upper trail. So our walk, while nice, was a lot shorter than when I had last been on it. Access to the upper parts of the Gorge is now only available to a local group and not part of the attraction. But it was still a nice easy thing to do.

When we were done, we had some options of how to get back to town. Since we were in theory only going to do this short walk, I had not brought my hiking poles (my hiking absolutely depends on them). One of our group seemed to want to go further up, but I suspect, in difference to me without my poles, we headed directly back down to town.

For dinner that night, as mentioned, we were on our own. Unfortunately, we didn’t make a reservation anywhere, and a few of the places we wanted to try were packed. We ended up walking up the main street, finding one place with a narrow patio along the street (most patios in Zermatt are tucked into side streets or otherwise isolated from the street noise). The Derby - what a mistake it was!!! The waiter was rude at best, only seemed to be willing to talk to one of us, and spent most of his time standing around and occasionally chatting with, I presume, his boss. I ordered beef stroganoff (how could that go wrong - beef and cheese and noodles in Switzerland?). Not sure what I got, but it wasn’t what I ordered at all. At least the wine was OK.

We still managed to have a good time and relaxed as we ate our surprise ‘meals’. I don’t recall if we tipped anything, but if we did, it was minimal and probably more than deserved. When we got back to our hotel, our wonderful hotel hostess asked where we had eaten. Her look was one of shock when we told her where we had ended up. She said that they always warned people away from the Derby - we fully agreed with her.

By the way, when you visit Zermatt, be sure to get out and walk around during dusk and after dark. It is a completely different, magical place.