Going to the Top of Europe

On Saturday, after only one week of work, I (Carrie) thought that it would be nice to take a trip into other areas of Switzerland. So we checked the forecast (which was for sun) and made plans to go to the Jungfrau region of the Swiss Alps and the Top of Europe.

The first hurdle was to get the train tickets. In order to get a discount on our tickets we needed to have a picture taken for a half-price card. This required figuring out how to use the little photo booths at the train station for the lowest price (they don't give change), in French and at top speed so that we would not miss the train we'd planned to take. My first attempt, for the lowest price, netted me a picture with my face inside a Valentine's card. My second attempt, which Andrew also copied, was to get a large portrait, which we shortly found out was too big. Twenty minutes -- which was long after our planned-for train had left -- and far too many Swiss francs later, we had passport-sized photos that would work.

With our little photos, purchasing our tickets was easy. But then we needed to validate our tickets on our way to the platform. Not having validated tickets before and seeing all kinds of ticket dispensing machines, we had no idea which machine would do the trick. Finally, we had to go back to the ticket agent, who told us it was the orange machine, not all the blue ones. Good. Tickets validated.

We then spent three hours on the train to get us to Interlaken, the base town from which we would ascend the mountains to go to the Jungfraujoch. The ascent also took place on several trains, which slowly chugged up the mountain (on a railroad built 100 years ago) and afforded us some spectacular views of the mountains and all the little towns high up in alpine meadows.

Once at the top, we enjoyed breath-taking views of the Swiss Alps and, because of the high visibility, we could see towns an hour or more away. There were even claims of being able to see France and Germany.

Inside the building that is perched on the side of the mountain, there was also an ice palace, which would have been more aptly named an ice cave. Inside were many tunnels through the ice, with an ice floor. There were also a number of exhibits of various ice sculptures of penguins, Eskimoes, arctic scenes, eagles, bears and a mouse (don't ask me why that was included...artistic freedom, I suppose).

The Sphinx observatory (the shiny building perched high above the rest) is accessible via an elevator that brings one straight up through the mountain, sparing tourists a rigorous climb; it might just have been our imaginations, but the air up at 12,000 feet seemed a little thin, causing us to tire quickly.

Outside the buildings, there was also a small plateau where frigidly windy views of the surroundings could be had. Here, we took the opportunity to take many pictures.

During our train ride up the mountain, we saw a clearing with dozens of helicopters parked like so many toys. We suppose they are for those heli-skiers among us, although there is hardly enough snow here right now to make that an attractive adventure. Note the gear track on the rail line at the bottom of the photo... the train hooks on to that to prevent its brave passengers from plummeting to their deaths on those 25% grade portions of the track.

All in all, a very worthwhile trip to the middle of nowhere and the top of the world!