Day 18 Tues 2nd July Interlaken - excursion to Jungraujoch - Top of Europe

Can today be better than yesterdays perfect day?  Yes, of course it can.

After our usual delicious breakfast we started out early on one of the highlight days of our trip. We were finally going up Jungfraujoch – the highest mountain in Switzerland. The forecast was for some cloud with thunderstorms and light snowfall in the afternoon so we caught the 8.03 train to make the most of the good weather in the morning. We needed to catch 3 trains to get there.  The first train meandered around the valley through little villages and streams coming from the huge mountains above.  It took an hour and was very relaxing.

We then changed trains to go on the next leg of our journey and on this trip we started to climb through the mountains.  The scenery was spectacular both sides of the train.  Again we passed through little villages, houses build in unbelievable positions on sides of mountains, cows with bells around their necks, wildflowers, streams, chairlifts and waterfalls.  It was all so pretty.

The final train was the most amazing and took us to Jungfrau station – the highest station in Europe.  It was a rack train and for 9.5 km we travelled through solid rock inside the mountain!!!  We stopped twice along the way at two small stations with viewing windows.  This was to get everyone acclimatised to the thin air.  How anyone could create this wonder is beyond belief.  The railway celebrated its 100 year anniversary last year.  Many people were killed building it.

We were prepared for it to be freezing when we got to the top but the sun was shining brightly (hotly) so we didn’t really need all the clothes we had on.  Once we got out of the train we went on a lift to the Sphinx observatory and spent some time gazing in amazement at snow-capped mountains and glaciers

We had lunch at the restaurant there and you will see by the photo of our soup that if we weren’t going to die from fear of heights it would be from a heart attack!!!  (my poor weight loss is suffering a hammering at the moment) BUT the highlight of the restaurant was our drink.  After looking at the prices on the drinks menu we decided to just have water.  One litre (out of the tap) came in a carafe with 4 glasses for 9.50 Swiss francs (about $10)  We drank every last drop!!!!!

We walked around at the top for over an hour though ice carving displays and information on how the railway was build.The trip down seemed to be a lot faster and we went on a different route for the second and third trains – again spectacular scenery.  We arrived back in Interlaken about 4 pm after an amazing, unbelievable, stunning, awesome, breathtaking, tiring & exhilarating day. This experience is a lifetime must see if you are in Switzerland.

The Sphinx Observatory

Inside the mountain

The cogs in the centre of the track

standing on top of the sphinx opservatory - its actually quite warm

Looking down through the grate to the miles below

A moving walkway in the ice caves

A jackhammer used to cut through the rock

some ice carvings

We got lost inside this HUGE underground area and this lovely Japanese lady (who was a tour guide)
showed us the best places to go and especially where the best toilets were so we didn't have to queue. (There were literally thousands of tourists here with us, mostly Japanese.  She LOVES
Australia and has been there 25 times. She is going to give up tour guiding and live in Australia next year

Our PRECIOUS water

Our heart attack soup.  We all  ordered Leek soup. It sounded nice. It was Full of melting cheese and this
HUGE dollop of cream. It was divine.  What a way to die!!!!

We were still able to smile after our soup.

We thought soup and icecream would be a nice light lunch.  The white chocolate
with the printing on it was really yummy.  We really should have jogged back down the
mountain instead of going by train.

A brand new house

Beautiful scenes towards the bottom

Paul thought all this fencing at the top of the mountain was to possibly stop avalanches?

The colour of the water is unbelievable