Tour Monte Rosa — Stage 8: Zermatt → Breuil-Cervinia

The return to Italy crosses the Theodul pass (3,295 m) over the Theodul glacier: a historic passage since the Middle Ages, today only feasible with a mountain guide and glacier equipment, or comfortably via the Matterhorn Alpine Crossing lifts to Testa Grigia and Breuil-Cervinia (2,006 m). This is therefore marked as a transfer stage, with no hiking track.

The Theodul has always been the natural passage between Valais and the Valtournenche: merchants, pilgrims and even cattle crossed here when the glacier was kinder. Today the summer crossing requires rope, crampons and a guide — the Theodul glacier’s crevasses are unforgiving — or you trust the Matterhorn Alpine Crossing: panoramic cable cars from Zermatt to Testa Grigia and Cervinia via the Klein Matterhorn, Europe’s highest cable link. At the pass, the Theodul refuge and the old customs ruins recall that the border ran — and runs — right here.