Stage 7 –St.Gingolph to Saas Fee

From St. Gingolph we drove along the Rhone Valley keeping predominantly in canton Wallis (French: Valais). Wallis has borders with both France and Italy, but because of the geography and mountainous terrain it’s quite impossible to drive along the border and for this project various compromises had to be made; Whether to take a quick peek at the Great St. Bernard pass on the French border? Whether to explore places such as Zermatt? Perhaps scramble up the Matterhorn and wave at the Italians from above?

We decided to continue directly along the main west – east axis, with the Bernese Oberland to the north and the Walliser Alps to the south. Resisting the temptation to explore the many steep, winding, intriguing roads leading towards the border but petering out at the foot of an impassable mountain.

Despite the mountains the first part of the journey along the valley is quite flat and the area is well known for its apricots which in the middle of July are on sale at numerous roadside stands. They really are very tasty.

We decided to spend the night in Saas Fee, firstly because we’ve never been there before, and secondly there is an abundance of hotels and restaurants in the traffic free village, allowing the traveller to enjoy a bit of ‘night life’.

By the side of our hotel was a cable car to Hannig, which of course we couldn’t resist, and after breakfast we found ourselves up an alp which offered wonderful views of the surrounding countryside.