The Jungfrau Bahn
At Grindalwald we had to change to another train taking us all the way up to Kleine Scheidegg. The climb up the mountain was just amazing, we were left wondering which is a better view, to see the mountain that we were approaching or to see the town we were leaving behind and we ended up changing seats often in pursuit of having the best of both the worlds. Kleine Sheidegg is the place where we had to change over to the so very famous Jungfrau-Bahn, the Train that climbs literally vertically up into the Alps taking us to Jungfrau, the top of Europe. It is a journey that takes us in a tunnel for about 40 mins straight and the tunnel is dug right through the mountain. The Jungfrau-Bahn took about an hour climbing through the mountain to lead us to Jungfraujoch. Jungfraujoch, is the top most point that a human being can reach in the whole of Europe. The Jungfrau-Bahn stopped at 3 places on our way up to give some really breath taking views of the Mountain, from within it. It was a moment to savor. I got out of the train in my enthu in a hurry to catch a great view, only to rush back into the train immediately as it did not take me more than a second to realize I was without my coat! The view that I had, once I had covered myself up sufficiently was something special, just cant be explained in words. Its a shame I don’t have a better picture of it.
View of the Apls from a Tunnel
Once we had done with the tunnel view, we ran back to the train which was whistling away for people to climb over to continue the journey upto to our destination. After two more such stops we finally reached the Jungfraujoch.
View of the Alps from Jungfraujoch
Once at the Jungraujoch we immediately realized we need some more protection from the cold, we dug into our bags for more layers of clothing. We then proceeded straight to the Watch tower from where we get amazing views of the Alps. Once we were done with the views we headed straight to the Sphinx Observation tower, the Top most point we could get to in Europe. We visited the Einstein Laboratory down there too. We then headed to what we really wanted to do, walk, feel and see ice. Here we come, the Jungfrau Plateau. It was the first for us and it was the best feeling. Unfortunately though my aunt who was accompanying me had a fall and I had to run over to lift her up and clean her of the snow left over her dress. We then sighted a make shift cafe out there and had a hot cup of coffee which turned cold pretty fast. The sight of fellow travellers slipping on ice and having a big bad fall was both funny and sad. And among the people falling, one common thing was, they were mostly Indians! We are not used to snow you see. We really enjoyed playing in snow, making a snow ball, throwing it at each other and posing for some photos.
The Sphinx Tower from the Plateau
At the Plateau
Play over, and we headed to another one of kind at Jungfrau, The ICE PALACE. The ice palace is an exhibit of carvings made of ice in a cave dug inside the mountain. The roof, the floor and the walls are completely covered with ice and it was really chilling experience, though an amazing one.
An Ice Carving at the Ice Palace
Now our stomach started seeking our attention and we headed right over to a restaurant. Having food at 3500 meters above sea level was something special and to get an Indian restaurant there was really great. It was hard to believe that it was actually cheaper for a lunch out there than at Interlaken or anywhere in Swiss. Over with lunch, we did some small souvenir shopping and headed back to Interlaken bidding good bye to the best place I had ever stepped on.
A salute to the Swiss engineering team for such a magnificent piece of engineering to make possible for mankind to visit a place such as that.
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