Hinterdorfstrasse

The sun-darkened larch wood beams of the houses on Hinterdorfstrasse are charred nearly to black by centuries of mountain light. This narrow lane holds the oldest residential quarter in Zermatt, where farmers built tightly packed barns and homes to protect their grain from rodents and moisture. Back in the eighteenth century, residents raised their wooden storehouses on flat stone discs. Those stones prevented mice from climbing into the food supply, keeping the village fed through the long, isolated winters in the valley.