I visited Zermatt in the off season, and the streets were mostly deserted. This offered me lots of quiet time to explore a town that is usually packed with skiers and trainloads of tourists in town to get a look at the Matterhorn (myself included). The biggest crowd I could find was a group of children surrounding a statue of marmots, the cute mountain rodent featured on a million Swiss postcards. I grabbed a picture of this marmot, standing guard in front of the towering Grand Hotel Zermatthof.