Zermatt is the most iconic village in Switzerland because of the Matterhorn, the Toblerone-shaped peak that features in every story about it and a few that aren't. Those same stories and Instagram posts show a postcard-perfect village with every shot dominated by that amazing view. More on that later.
Zermatt is a car-free resort, officially so since 1961, and private cars can only reach Täsch, 5 kilometres down the valley. From there, a shuttle train takes around 12 minutes into the resort. Many visitors arrive by train from Visp, or even directly from Geneva or Zurich. The trains really are that good.
Täsch has been taken over by parking and an industry has appeared to provide you with a parking space and a taxi or train ride to the resort. The short train journey from Täsch is slow and not particularly scenic by Swiss standards. It is also another cost on top of parking. You might think this is a win for the climate, but there is still a road to Zermatt used by lorries, local vehicles, delivery traffic and taxis, with access controlled by permits. In the next valley, Saas-Fee is also car-free but you can park within walking distance of the village. It feels like a con because it is.
The wallet-emptying continues at some pace when you arrive. The Matterhorn Glacier Paradise is not actually on the Matterhorn but on the Klein Matterhorn, at 3,883 metres, and a return ticket from Zermatt currently starts at CHF 120, rising to CHF 132 in July and August 2026. The Gornergrat railway is another must-do, with a summer 2026 return journey costing CHF 141. Then there are the other lifts, all offering amazing views of the Matterhorn.
Zermatt's main street, Bahnhofstrasse, leads out from the station and runs much of the length of the village. It is choc-full of upmarket watch brands such as Omega, Hublot, Patek Philippe and Zenith, all with beautiful boutiques. Amongst these Swiss jewels are outdoor clothing shops, restaurants and shops selling every piece of tourist memorabilia you could imagine. A small part of Zermatt still has a few old barns from the days when it was the farming village of Zur Matte – the meadows – but these are surrounded by hotels and construction. Endless construction.
Zermatt is Switzerland's Disneyland – a microcosm of everything Switzerland in one place. It has the rides and the T-shirts and the tourists by the trainload. Of course, millions of people love Disneyland and if you have one day to see Switzerland, Zermatt will give you both barrels. What is missing from Zermatt is any great sense of authenticity. In the churchyard, thankfully quiet even on an August day, lie the graves of some of the early Matterhorn climbers. The 1865 first ascent ended in tragedy when four members of Edward Whymper's party – Michel Croz, Reverend Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow and Lord Francis Douglas – fell to their deaths after the rope connecting them to the surviving climbers broke. The Taugwalders, father and son, were among the survivors. The Matterhorn Museum displays the surviving section of the rope.
Zermatt's ski area is linked with Breuil-Cervinia and Valtournenche in Italy and is the highest ski area in the Alps, reaching almost 4,000 metres. The Matterhorn Glacier Paradise area also supports summer skiing on the Theodul Glacier. It did not disappear after the hot summer of 2022, although climate change has made summer glacier skiing increasingly difficult. In July 2026, Zermatt Bergbahnen temporarily suspended summer skiing for ordinary visitors because of exceptionally high temperatures, lack of overnight cooling, thunderstorms and deteriorating snow and glacier conditions.
The Sunnegga funicular takes you to 2,288 metres before cable cars continue towards Rothorn, offering views across the valley to the Matterhorn. From Sunnegga you can hike back down via the lake at Leisee and on towards Grünsee if you want to recreate the classic photograph of the Matterhorn reflected in a mountain lake. Allow around three hours for the longer descent to Zermatt. Arrive early if you want the best chance of finding the lake mirror-still. The Schwarzsee cable car is another starting point for higher hikes on the other side of the valley.
The Gornergrat railway is an electric rack railway that takes you to an altitude of 3,089 metres. It opened in 1898 and was the first electric rack railway in Switzerland, and is now the oldest surviving electric rack railway in the world. The line climbs from Zermatt through the forests around Riffelalp and onwards through alpine pasture to the summit.
The train stops at Riffelalp, a small hamlet that is home to the Riffelalp Resort. The original Grand Hotel Riffelalp opened in 1884 as a summer hotel and quickly became a playground for European high society. The building was destroyed by fire in 1961; today's five-star Riffelalp Resort 2222m was developed on the site between 1998 and 2000. At 2,222 metres it retains the improbable distinction of being a luxury hotel reached only by mountain railway, foot or, in summer, Europe's highest tramway.
If you have seen the TV adaptation of John le Carré's 'The Night Manager', you will recognise the Riffelalp. The hotel and surrounding Gornergrat area were used as filming locations, with Jonathan Pine working there as the night manager and meeting Richard Roper. If you haven't seen it, you should.
After a short pause at Riffelalp, the train continues on its very scenic way to the summit. Views of the Matterhorn are fabulous along the route. At the top, you alight from the train and are immediately confronted with the Gorner Glacier. The glacier descends from the Monte Rosa massif and is the second-longest glacier in the Alps after the Aletsch. It is still retreating, although its high altitude and complex accumulation area give it a different character from the smaller valley glaciers.
The Monte Rosa massif is home to the Dufourspitze, at 4,634 metres the highest mountain in Switzerland and the second-highest peak in the Alps. From the Gornergrat, the mountain forms part of one of the great panoramas of the Alps, with 29 four-thousand-metre peaks surrounding the viewpoint.
So let's talk about those photos of the Matterhorn. The reality is that the Matterhorn does not dominate the skyline in quite the way Instagram would have you believe. From the village it is a substantial mountain in the distance, and if you are lucky you can see a clear view of it in the morning. As with many 4,000-metre peaks, it attracts clouds and can disappear as the day goes on. The photographs of it looming over the village or dominating the skyline are generally shot with telephoto or zoom lenses, compressing the distance and making the mountain appear much closer.
Shoot it on your iPhone from the village and it can look like a slightly blurry grey peak in the distance. From some of the viewpoints high above Zermatt on a clear morning, however, there are genuinely great views. Winter, spring and autumn generally give you better photographic conditions than high summer, when haze and cloud can reduce the Matterhorn to another grey shape in an already grey landscape. Bring a zoom lens and a filter and, well, boom. Instagram success beckons.