Zermatt Switzerland with Noah: New Year's Eve in Zermatt Switzerland

Grizzly's Bar & Bistro
Zermatt, Switzerland

New Year's Eve in Zermatt, Switzerland was a unique experience. Troy, Momma and I had dinner at a cozy little restaurant named Grizzly's. It was near the train station and not too far of a walk from our hotel (National Hotel). We had reservations but I do not think we needed them. There were several other restaurants, however, to which no more reservations were available. We were very happy to find Grizzly's available after having spotted it as we walked from the Gornergrat Bahn station to our hotel.

Momma and Noah. Troy took the photo.

This little cub was outside Grizzly's door.

We had a great dinner for New Year's Eve. While at the restaurant, the staff brought out indoor fireworks that they set off at the bar and at the tables (I'm not exactly sure the restaurant brought these in. One of the other customers may have). This video shows one of them being lit on the restaurant bar. We had not seen these anywhere before and were surprised at having fireworks in the building.

After finishing our dinner at Grizzly's, we walked the street towards the center of town as we planned to be out on the town at midnight. Mainly because we had all been in bed in Rome last New Year's Eve well before midnight because Troy and I both had the flu. I'll have that story up on my Rome travel blog soon.

Walking through the snow-covered streets of Zermatt on New Year's Eve leading up to midnight, people and fireworks were everywhere. On every street, on every street corner, in every parking lot, in every open space, there were fireworks exploding. Zermatt may organize an official New Year's Eve fireworks display, but they really do not need to if they do. Pretty much every group of people we walked past were lighting sparklers, bottle rockets, flares, cherry bombs, Roman candles and every other kind of fireworks imaginable. We didn't see any accidents, but I'm surprised if there were not. There were a lot of drunk people lighting fuses.

That's me in the parking lot where I recorded the video below.

With downtown Zermatt being in a narrow valley with the ski slopes towering above us, the fireworks were lighting up the night sky in all directions and at all heights. People downtown were shooting fireworks high into the air and people on the slopes were shooting fireworks even higher into the air - in every direction around us. Here is a short video of some intense fireworks. We were in a parking lot close to the center of downtown.

The fireworks went on for hours. We stayed for a good bit longer and then made our walk back to our hotel. The next day, we had a morning train to Amsterdam. That was an adventure. I'll put those stories on the next page. Happy New Year!