Old House Zermatt

The Hinterdorf in Zermatt holds a collection of ancient wooden barns and storehouses perched on flat stone discs. These stone slabs sit atop wooden stilts to create an impassable barrier for mice and rats, protecting the winter grain supply. These blackened, sun-scorched larch wood structures date back as far as the sixteenth century. They remain clustered together just as they were when Zermatt existed as a quiet farming village, long before the first hotel appeared and mountain tourism transformed the valley floor.