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On Thursday morning we made an early start to head up to the "top of Europe" - the Jungfraujoch. We were taking a train up the Jungfrau mountain, to the highest altitude train station in Europe. It's quite a lengthy process to climb the 3454 metres to the Jungfraujoch station…First we took a train from Interlaken Ost to Grindelwald, then we took another train to Kleine Scneidegg, & from there we took another train up to Jungfraujoch. The third train was a little bit like being on a really slow motion ride at Disneyland, because the tracks were so much steeper than normal train tracks, and all of the trains looked like they were out of Thomas the Tank Engine!
Even though the attraction itself is the station at the top, the train journey along the way would be well worth it even if you never stopped at the top. It's all the most beautiful elements of the Swiss countryside, with lots of wild flowers & uncut grass, cute wooden houses with painted shutters & flower boxes under the window sills, & cows everywhere - gorgeous caramel & white cows, with actual cow bells!! Then when you get up to the top of the mountain, after you've gone right through the middle of the mountain, you emerge into a world of white. Snow everywhere. And it's really, really cold!!
We went through the ice palace at the Jungfraujoch & waddled along like penguins, trying not to lift our feet up too much so we wouldn't slip over. They had sculptures of eagles, Eskimos, penguins, crystals…& the whole place was itself carved into the ice! When our toes started to go numb (& I began to regret not wearing any socks that day) we went back inside to warm up. Fortunately we had a really clear day, with not too much cloud cover, so the view from the top terrace was gorgeous & we were able to get some great photos. We spent about a hour up there, taking it all in, before heading back down on the train to Kleine Schneidegg.
We stopped in Kleine Schneidegg for lunch & because it's so much warmer, even those couple hundred of metres down the mountain we were able to sit outside at big wooden tables, right at the foot of the mountains, while we devoured a seriously yummy lunch. We ordered an apple pie to share for desert & it was actually quite hilarious how huge it was…like about as big as a decent sized building brick haha. We made a pretty good attempt but didn't get through it all!
After lunch we took another train down past Wengen to Lauterbrunnen, during which Nigel excitedly pointed out lots of mountain goats to me, & baby mountain goats…which he called goatlettes. I was like "Do you mean kids?", he's like "Oh…yeah…is that what baby goats are called?" haha But I kinda like calling them goatlettes actually :) From Lauterbrunnen we took a bus to the Trummelbach falls, which are the only European glacial waterfalls inside the mountains that are actually accessible. You climb into a little buggy thing which takes you right up inside the mountain, & from there you walk through a series of tunnels to get to the different chutes where you can see the water pouring down. It's incredible to see how much power & force there is behind the water, which is so noisy you have to yell to be heard. There's a damp mist in the air everywhere because there's just so much water coursing through there every second. Really glad I bought socks up at the Jungfraujoch :)
In the evening chef Nigel Lawson made a mushroom risotto for dinner for us, with lots of yummy vegetables. And then we had one last Movenpick icecream…chocolate with chocolate chips. Simple, classic, & delicious.
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