Hotel Monte Rosa

"Charming isn’t quite the right word for the Matterhorn, is it? It’s got more than charm going for it. But let’s say the mountain’s grandeur, its tremendous majesty, its heart-wrenching sublimity, are matched by the more humanly proportioned charm of the Monte Rosa hotel near its base. It’s a tidy Victorian affair with wrought-iron Juliet balconies and red wooden shutters which, in spring and summer, harmonize with the velvety geraniums in the window boxes. The moment it opened in 1847 the Monte Rosa became the de facto headquarters of the mountaineers, geologists, botanists, restless aristocrats, and assorted well-heeled oddballs who had suddenly discovered an urgent need to clamber or merely gaze upon the Swiss Alps. There are some slightly fancier places to stay in Zermatt these days. But there’s only one Monte Rosa, with its marvelous, low-ceilinged, tartan-upholstered bar; its woody, woolly, reassuring rooms; and its restaurant, Belle Epoque, still among the loveliest dining rooms in a town that’s full of them. In the narrow lanes around the hotel are centuries-old chalets made of larch as blackened as frostbitten toes. Looming over it all, of course, like the greatest cathedral spire the world has ever known, is the Matterhorn."