Rome to Paris, by way of the Matterhorn

You can figure out travel times by looking at train websites; you can figure out most of it on the Deutsche bahn site:
http://www.bahn.com/i/view/index.shtml Then since the little train up to Zermatt is private, you may have to look at another site for that. But in any case, you can do the legwork here to figure it out. With 2 weeks you definitely have time to do this. I think you'll find many of us here prefer the Berner Oberland (Lauterbrunnen/Murren/Wengen) to Zermatt. I'm glad I went to Zermatt once, but it was very touristy and I have chosen other Swiss Alps destinations for return trips. Keep in mind May is an inbetween season and some hotels and trams may be closed. Trails may still be snow covered.

Trains from Rome to Paris generally do not enter Switzerland. They go west from either Parma/Bologna or Milan to Dijon or Lyon. These are the Artesia trains. The TGVs make their runs to Geneva or further north to Zurich or Basel. Unfortunately, Zermatt is about half way between Milan and Zurich. But, you can do the trip to Zermatt if you want. To get to Zermatt, you will need to route via Milan up into Switzerland to Brig. This run will not take you through the Pass. At Brig, you take the Glacier Express west to Zermatt. Note that the Matterhorn can cloud up in the afternoon - morning is best. From Zermatt, you can return to Brig and catch the train north to Spiez where you can pick up the Golden Pass scenic train west to Montreau and then change trains to Geneva. At Geneva, you can pick up the TGV into Paris. Lots of train time but you do get to ride two of Switzerlands' two scenic trains.

Larry's routing is quite a zigzag. Zermatt is only a one-hour deviation from the route that goes from Brig to Montreux to Paris. There is a TGV (No. 9268) that does this route with no changes. Your deviation point would be Visp, one stop west of Brig. Change there for the one-hour journey into Zermatt. The next morning, return to Visp in time to catch the 9268 TGV, which stops at Visp at 11:10 am. You arrive in Paris (Gare de Lyon) at 17:03 A detour to see the Matterhorn is always a gamble, as it is often shrouded in clouds. By staing overnight in Zermatt you will increase your chances. The village should be pretty quiet in May, as it is between seasons. I like the Swiss rail site, www.rail.ch to plan my trips.

Thanks for the replies so far. I can't check schedules for May yet, so I used the end of April instead just to get an idea, I'm currently looking at spending the night prior in Milan, then heading up to Zermatt on Saturday morning. Arriving in Zermatt around noon, spending the afternoon and overnight there, as well as much of the next day. The route from the Swiss Rail site that seems pretty good for us is a 15:39 departure to Zermatt-Visp. Then Visp-Geneva, then on to Paris. Total travel time is 7:10, with only 2 changes (Visp and Geneva). I've been told going down through Geneva is the most scenic? Any ideas/suggestions for the best way to purchase tickets at a discount? I like that Swiss Rail pass gives discounts on the cable cars near Zermatt, so we were thinking Swiss-France 4 days, 2 months ticket?

The France-Swiss 2-country pass does not give you the same covereage and discounts as a pure Swiss Pass. It doesn't cover the private train from Visp into Zermatt; instead you get a 25% discount from the full fare. And it may not give you any discount on the Zermatt mountain lifts and Gornergrat train at all---not sure about that part.