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As Dani, my 4000-er climber mate was in Switzerland in August
I took advantage of the long week-end in Belgium (15-18 August)
and went to Geneva for another mountain adventure. The plan
was to climb Monte Rosa which is the name of a couple of peaks
on the Swiss-Italian border. Climbing Dufourspitze, the highest
one of these peaks and highest point of Switzerland, was the
main task, but we basically wanted to do as much as we could
just fit in those 3 days we had.
The starting point for Monte Rosa is a village called Zermatt
situated at the south end of a north-south valley. Zermatt is
beautiful but unfortunately highly touristy village famous for
several things: it is the most southern German speaking settlement
in Europe, it has still many of those wooden houses standing
on wooden columns and stone plates and, again, covered with
stone plates, representing ancient Swiss rural architecture
for the protection of which it is totally closed for vehicles
with a gas engine so that all transport in the village is managed
with electric vehicles and that the only way to access the village
is by the Zermatt railway that, conscious of its monopoly, charges
16 Swiss francs for a round trip ticket of a 5km track.
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