Zermatt - the start of the Glacier Express

Zermatt is a small town in the shadow of the Matterhorn and famous (in these parts) for not allowing cars (well, internal combustion) for environmental reasons - the main one being the view of the Matterhorn. I made my way from Interlaken (accompanied, part of the way, by a fellow hosteller) by train of course and it was partly along the glacier express path so I had a chance to recce it.
Once I'd sorted my bags out, I found some maps and paths to make my walk. After stepping in a massive puddle, I found my way winding around the bottom of the Matterhorn. Visibility was variable but an enjoyable walk was had. I don't think I'll tire of signs to go to different countries for a while so I liked the fact that the ski lifts took you to Italy - I am often easily impressed.

Zermatt 2013 - click for photo album

While I had dinner, I noticed the noise from another room downstairs and found some people watching tv. It was France vs Spain (an England game vs Montenegro was also on) so I watched. As a result of the magic societal effects of football, I got talking to a Swiss guy who happened to work there (called Sven). We started on football but it lasted for a few hours and we spoke about employment rights and travel which is a great combination. The reason for that particular combination was that he was a "civil servant" and not in the military.

In Switzerland, national service is compulsory and usually with the Swiss army, but my conversational companion had persuaded the relevant authorities that he was a pacifist and so was placed into different civilian "institutions" for help. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this,conceptually, as it does appear to be public finance subsidising private companies but I'm not sure how private the companies are. Sven said that he'd worked in a fair few places on the scheme and he got a lot of personal benefits (free train travel?) out of it and that, of course, the company did too as his salary was basically state funded. He was paid at a similar rate to his previous job as the wages he got were linked to his previous pay rather the job itself and so, as he'd had a relatively well paid job before, he was relatively well paid now. He said a similar thing about unemployment benefit and it is, of course, much more "generous" than in the UK. We spoke for quite a while about national service, which I found really interesting, but it ended up being pretty late by the time I went to bed.