A Great Meal In The Middle Of A Meadow
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger
The day was lovely.
Not the kind of stunning lovely day one might expect to find in late summer in Switzerland – clouds kept us from seeing the famous reflection of the Matterhorn shining in a pond, the image which has graced a thousand postcards – but lovely none-the-less.
We were hiking – strolling, really – through the Swiss Alps. We had taken the Clacier Aerial Cable Car 12,000+ feet up to the Little Matterhorn (an experience that took my breath away, quite literally) and were walking back to the village of Zermatt.
They do this in Switzerland; that is, take transportation up the mountains, then walk back down them.
As we were walking, led by our Tourism Zermatt and Tourism Switzerland guides, it started to sprinkle. And still it was lovely. I know of few places in the world where it can be pretty when rain is coming down and this is one of them (Amsterdam is another).
We walked past grazing sheep and it was so quiet we could hear those big Swiss cowbells clanging in the distance.
And the next thing I knew, we were at a restaurant.
No kidding.
Right in the middle of a meadow, we stopped, sat down and ordered lunch.
This place was in a valley along the trail and consisted of a couple of wood buildings with some tables on a patio. We sat outside, under big cafe-type umbrellas and had a fantastic lunch and drank lots of great Swiss wine.
Could there be any better way to spend a day?
I can’t tell you how relaxing it was and how refreshing it was, too. I was in a place where time did not matter, where politics didn’t matter, where nothing mattered except soaking in every single moment of this unique experience.
The restaurant is called Yum See and the funny thing is, it’s not the only restaurant in the middle of these meadows.
There’s a wooden shack that’s a pizza place (which I found odd and made me chuckle; I mean who would think you could get a pizza in the middle of a hiking trail in the Swiss Alps?) and a few other spots.
In ski season, these are chalets where you stop for a meal and schnapps.
I wish I could explain how to get there because you sure won’t find it on any smartphone app. Go down some little wooden steps along the trail and turn right at the edelweiss, I suppose.
And at this time and in this place, I would have it no other way.
Leave a Reply