Jungfrau Day Trip

A stay in Interlaken was solely to visit Jungfrau, the highest train station in Europe.  There were some clouds that day but mostly fine and the temperature at Jungfrau at 1:00pm was 2.5 degrees Celsius.  

We caught the first train of the day to Grindelwald where we had breakfast of a hot chocolate and croissant.  

Grindelwald Bus Station

After breakfast we caught a bus to where a glacier walk started, which Trevor had read about in his Lonely Planet guide.  An easy but longer than what we expected walk brought us to where the 890 step climb up a rocky mountain to the glacier, to our surprise was closed, to my relief as the steps were bolted to the rock face with no guard rails so if you fell, "all over Red Rover", we believe in the past the steps would have had railings but most likely got destroyed in a heavy snow fall?  

Glacier near Grindelwald

890 steps to the glacier!

It was then my decision that we should continue to walk to Pfingstegg 

Vista from the Glacier to Pfingstegg

Hike to Pfingstegg included walking under a waterfall and through a tunnel.

where there is a luge track but we were two hours too early to do this, so we caught the cable car down to Grindelwald.  

Cable Car, Pfingstegg to Grindelwald

We walked south of the town to Gletscherschlucht, Glacier Gorge, where a path clings to the side of the gorge and then enters a tunnel through the gorge with viewing areas along the way, passing a waterfall; this is where the water from a glacier lake flows down through the towns and villages.    

Gletscherschlucht, Glacier Gorge

Afterwards it was time to catch the train to Kleine Schnidegg where a change of trains are required as a cog rail is needed to make the step incline to the top.  

Cog Rail

The cog rail train makes two stops on the way up, where you have two minutes to walk to a viewing platform for views of the mountain so you can see how far you have traveled so far, we only got out at the second stop.  

View from one of the stops on the way to the top of Jungfrau

Once you arrive even though you are inside the mountain the cold really hits you, we walked to the sphinx, a building at the top of the mountain where you walk out into the cold mountain air.  We walked around the Sphinx on a veranda; my nose did not like the cold so after walking around the Sphinx it was a mad dash to get inside before frost bite sets in.   

Me at the Sphinx

Once inside we decided to have lunch in the self service restaurant followed by some shopping for chocolate which is made on the slopes of Jungfrau.  We braved the cold once more to see views from the other side of the mountain and we stood amongst snow on the ground.  I encouraged Trevor to make a snow ball and then to throw it at me and I did likewise, one soft another hard.  

Jungfrau looking up to the Sphinx

On this side of the mountain we were protected from the wind so we discussed doing a long walk out to another mountain peak, when trying to find the exit for the walk we saw the ice palace which we had forgotten about and decided to do this instead.  The Ice Palace is a walk through a glacier, where ice sculptures are carved from the ice and was worth the visit.  

Ice Palace

By this time we discovered that the last train heading down the mountain was soon to arrive, so we left without doing the extra hike.  We took the train via Wengen on our return and saw an amazing waterfall from the train, 

Waterfall seen from the train from Jungfrau to Wengen

which was on Trevor's lists of things to do for that day but we didn't have time to hike to them.  I would recommend a stay at Grindelwald or Wengen for three days as there was so much more we wanted to do and see.  For me a visit to First and a walk to Lake Bachalpsee, Botanical Alpine Garden at Schynige Platte plus a hike to see marmots in there natural habitat is all things I had to miss out on.

We arrived back in Interlaken with enough time to buy chocolates and have dinner.