At 6,670 feet on a bright winter day, the vast, sweeping snow fields of Switzerland's Oberalp Pass glistened. The snow was deep, a thick blanket of white. There was no one in sight. Two virgin ski tracks spoke of high-alpine solitude.

A few miles away, schussers and snowboarders, bobsledders and cross-country skiers dotted the slopes high above the Andermatt ski resort, which is nestled in the Urseren Valley and protected by avalanche fences. There was a tunnel, then the Rhone River, blue-gray and white-capped, rushing along over rocks, under bridges, from its source high above in the Rhone Glacier.

The views were not from a hot-air balloon, but from the Glacier Express, Switzerland's most spectacular train ride. Mention the trip and even the Swiss, for whom trains and mountains are part of life, will wax enthusiastic. When I told the cashier at a Zurich hotel where I was going, she said: "I took my mother on the Glacier Express for her birthday. It was 18 years ago and she's still talking about it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/tr...tml?1209inside