Zermatt (Mini-Paradise on earth) and Breithorn summit

We landed in Zermatt after 8.5 hours (2 hours delay.. yes trains in Europe also have delays😊) of train journey from Paris. Zermatt is a small self sufficient village in Switzerland at the bottom of Matterhorn (chocolate mountain!!). Total green village with only electric taxi (cars) and (E)-Bikes or Walk:)- We headed straight to Zermatters for confirming our hike to Breithorn at a height of 4,164 meters (13,660 feet) and is one of the 4000+ meters highest peaks in the Alps. Since Permitter closes at 6pm and we only had less than fifteen minutes. Interestingly, we were able to walk to Zermatters from train station and confirm, pay for hike with 2-3mins to spare. 

We then walked to our hotel Astoria, nice cozy old, well maintained Swiss hotel with incredible view of Matterhorn. Once we settled in our room, we headed out for dinner. Zermatt had stores for all Swiss luxury watches, hiking / outdoor and restaurants catering around the world. We found Italian place for dinner and had great pasta and wine.. in prep for morning hike!!

Hike day: We walked to the train station, where we met our Zermatters hiking guide Andreas at 830hrs.. We purchased cable car (2), gondola(1) ticket that would take us to Matterhorn Glacier Paradise.. starting point of our hike. 

Our guide roped all 4 of us (Andreas, Shashi, myself and Kallen from UK) and we set out for our hike to Breithorn. It was beautiful clear weather with not much winds, slight haze and all white with fresh snow!! We hiked at a constant pace and as a team through the snow lanes, could see few more teams /groups hiking like us. After 45mins, we took a break for water and our guide helped us with crampons. From here on, hike became more intense around the ledges, more incline to climb and slippery (at places) with fresh snow!! We had reached Italy as we just were hiking and we were going back to Switzerland as we reach the peak.

We had amazing views of Matterhorn at the back and we continued with the same pace for another 2hrs and summited Breithorn!!! We were able to see Mount Rosa, Matterhorn (covered with haze) and Zermatt village at the bottom. Views were breathtaking and we took pics / videos and spent 10mins on the top. As it started to get more windy and colder, we stared our descent. We traversed down with some more slips and I also learnt to keep heal first for better grip with crampons and we’re back down in another 2 hours or so. It was amazing Team work with one step at a time, in full sync for 5 hours and we were happily exhausted!!! 

We had some refreshments at the restaurant atop before returning back on the cable cars and gondola to Zermatt. We explored little more of Zermatt with more pics, beer, souvenirs and shopping. We had dinner at Golden India and returned back to hotel. We retired for the day with another view of Matterhorn from our hotel room and ton of memories!!!