The mountain village of Zermatt (from "zur Matte", "on the mountain pasture") is the leading climbing and winter sports capital in the Valais and one of Switzerland's great international resorts. Nestling in a green valley enclosed between steeply scarped mountains, it is dominated by the "mountain
of mountains", the huge and gracefully curved pyramid of the Matterhorn. The Nikolai valley, at the head of which Zermatt lies, is open to cars only as far as Täsch; Zermatt itself is without motor cars (local transport is by electric vehicles and horse-drawn cabs). Among the old timber houses, weathered brown with age, are numerous hotels, all built in a style adapted to the setting. A rack-railroad, several long cableways and numerous ski-lifts bring the various walking, climbing and winter sports areas within easy reach. There are magnificent long ski-runs of all grades of difficulty.
Leisure activities include tennis, swimming, walking and mountain-climbing (mountaineering tuition).
Visitors who would like to have a bird's eye view of the area can have a circular flight in a helicopter. The landing place ("heliport") is situated at the north end of the village. Since 1988, there has been a mountain trail for cyclists which runs from the Winkelmatten beyond Zermatt up to the Furi.
Until the end of the Middle Ages the glaciers were higher up and the tree-line was at about 2,600 m/8,531ft so that the Theodul pass offered a fairly easy route through the mountains, and this was used from Roman times onwards. Zermatt itself is first recorded in 1218 under the Latin name of Pratoborgno. By the 17th C. its 100 or so families had purchased their freedom from the landowners of the Rhône valley and formed a citizen body, to which after 1618 only the 19th C. hotelier Alexandre Seiler was admitted.
The mountains around Zermatt were first mastered from 1830 onwards almost exclusively by British climbers, who were the first to climb 31 out of the 39 principal peaks (Breithorn 1830, Monte Rosa 1855, Matterhorn 1865). The famous climbers' hotel, the Monte Rosa, was opened in 1854, the railroad from St Niklaus in 1891, the Gornergrat rack-railroad in 1898. 1898 also saw the appearance of the first skier, but Zermatt's rise into a great winter sports resort did not really begin until 1927.
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