Word: zermatt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...little Alpine ski resort of Zermatt rakes in a lucrative $10 million from visitors each year, but the authorities there know that customers are notoriously fickle; overnight a touch of bad weather, bad service in the hotels or an ugly scandal can send hundreds of tourists off in a huff to St. Moritz or Davos. Hence the reluctance of Zermatt's townsmen to talk about the curious wave of illness that began popping up three months ago. They stolidly ignored word from a Zurich physician that a patient just back from skiing in Zermatt was down with typhoid fever...
Even then, Zermatt officials publicly pooh-poohed rumors of an epidemic. The Zermatt Tourist Office pronounced Zermatt's water "99.93% pure," while local citizens denounced the "foreign sensationalist press" for reporting the gossip...
...thousands more unwary tourists poured in, packing Zermatt's 56 hotels to the rafters, cash registers jingled-and typhoid spread unchecked...
...dough at Stowe lies mostly in the snow," crooned a banjo-toting minnesinger before the inevitable open fireplace of that famed ski retreat in Vermont last week. And the same truth was self-evident in thousands of other resorts around the world from Aspen to Zermatt, where the ski slopes resembled a lavishly and gaily costumed flea circus...
...Still unrivaled as a picture-book resort is Switzerland's Zermatt, on the shoulder of the famed Matterhorn...