May 12 and recapping

Through clear skies we headed to Chillon Castle which is a castle built on rock, similar to the one we saw in France, but was once a prison/bastion. Very cool - we went into the bowels and saw how they attached it to the bedrock. It was a place that Lord Byron once visited and wrote the story of a man imprisoned in the depths for 6 years. For lunch on this day, we though we would just mosey on over to Lake Geneva - Heh Gerhard, wanna go to Geneva for lunch? Our whole trip has been like this. Wake up in the morning and say - think we'll go to France for the day.
Geneva, of course, is the world's official gov't business headquarters because of tax-saving purposes but also because they can all fit into a beautiful spot. We saw Unicef, Red Cross, United Nations etc. You name it, it's there.
After a bit more nail-biting Alps climbing, we landed in a small town where we took our cog-wheel train up to the top of Zermatt where we, again, climbed a steep street to our beautiful hotel chalet. G and I had one of the biggest rooms where we could hold a party in the bathroom (actually had a speaker in it from the tv) and also we had a beautiful balcony looking up to the Alps. We opened up wine (of course) and cheered on Zermatt. Here we found ourselves out after dark - for only our 6 or 7th time - and found all the other Canadians on our bus tour walking as well.
Zermatt is the most quiet place on Earth. No cars allowed. Only electric quiet motors. There were some actual diesel-run work vehicles doing construction etc which get flown in by helicopters or by the train but they only work in the morning.
In the morning, we took our second cog-wheel train straight up to 10,000 feet to visit Gornergrat where we had a perfect view of the Matterhorn. It was a beautifully sunny and warm day - even though there were several feet of snow left and we had to hold onto mountain ropes to get the highest up we could. We had a great time watching the marmots and ibex run about on top of the snow sunning themselves. When we descended the mountain to Zermatt, we went for a walk and found private cemeteries where all the men had been placed for their failed efforts in trying to conquer the climb up the Matterhorn.
We tried to spend great deal of our time in the world of the places that we visited and so we meet some very original and wonderful people who lived there. We kept trying to fill the pockets with change of the little girl who was our server at our hotel. She was so cute and was saving to go to Lucerne to university. Big hugs and kisses for her when we left.
Zermatt was everything we thought it would be.