Zermatt, which sits at 5,000 feet in the shadow of the 14,690-foot Matterhorn, is nestled at the dead-end of a long valley in Switzerland's remote southwest. While it's barely two hours from Bern and Interlaken by train, or about three from Z?rich or Lausanne, it's not quite on the way to anywhere.

No, Zermatt and the Matterhorn are distinct, though they are geographically and culturally inseparable. Zermatt is a car-free mountain village located in the Swiss Alps at an altitude of 1,620 meters. It is a world-famous resort town known for its luxury chalets, high-end shopping, and historic wooden buildings. The Matterhorn is the iconic mountain peak (standing at 4,478 meters) that towers over the village. While you can see the Matterhorn from almost anywhere in Zermatt, they are different entities: one is a place of residence and tourism, the other is a geological landmark. The town of Zermatt serves as the "base camp" for any excursions to the mountain, including the Gornergrat railway and the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise cable car. Their identities are "interwoven" because the mountain’s unique pyramidal shape is the primary reason Zermatt evolved from a tiny farming hamlet into a global tourism hub in the mid-19th century.