Stephanie and I both slept really well last night, it was a little cooler here than in Lucerne and we both thought that helped, as well as all of the activity and stressful travel from yesterday.
I woke up about 6:30 AM, and made some coffee in the Nestle cup coffee machine, similar to a Keurig. I worked on the blog as usual, it is just easier during the peaceful morning time. As typical, Stephanie slept in since we did not need to get out really early this morning.
Today, our plan is to go up to the Jungfraujoch. From Wikipedia, it is defined as:
“The Jungfraujoch is a saddle connecting two major 4000 meter mountains of the Bernese Alps: the Jungfrau and the Mönch. It lies at an elevation of 3,463 meters above sea level and is directly overlooked by the rocky prominence of the Sphinx.”
The weather was forecast to be perfectly sunny, so we were excited that we would be able to enjoy this adventure in great weather.
We got ready and enjoyed a nice traditional German breakfast that we put together in the apartment, ham, cheese and bread. We packed up all of our gear, including jackets and sweaters, we were not sure how cold it would be at the top, which is 11,362 feet in elevation. The weather forecast was for temperatures at the top was around 32 degrees F, but we were not sure about the wind and wind chill impact, better to be prepared than freezing.
We left the apartment about 9:00 AM and headed to the train station to take the short four minute ride to the Grindelwald Terminal, the central location for access to the Jungfraujoch. We took the high speed 25 person Eiger Express gondola to the Eigergletscher Station. From there we got in line to take the Cog Train to the Jungfraujoch. We only had to wait in line about 20 minutes before we scanned our three day passes for entry and went downstairs to the platform. About 5 minutes later the train arrived and we boarded. They do a good job of counting the people going through the automatic ticket scanners and filling the train to capacity It is a popular attraction, especially on a clear sunny day.
We departed right on time and headed directly into a tunnel. The entire trip up to the Jungfraujoch is in a tunnel, and it takes about 25 minutes to get to the top station, which is also underground. While it is sort of a boring trip, the engineering required to make it happen is amazing, especially since it was originally finished in 1912. Here is a link to read about the Jungfraujoch Construction History. There was one intermediate stop where I got off the train and headed over to some observation windows to look out over the Great Aletsch Glacier.
Great Aletsch Glacier From Jungfraujoch
Once we arrived at the station for the Jungfraujoch, which is also completely inside the mountain, we got off the train and headed to the main viewing area.
There are several floors, and you start the tour at the same level as the station. We went up to the very top via an elevator, and there was a large outside observation platform where you could get views in all directions by walking around the platform.
This area looks out over the Great Aletsch Glacier, which is the largest glacier in the Alps. We saw many people walking on a long trail in the snow down below us, so we took the elevator back down and looked for the exit out onto the trail.
Photo From The Observation Platform
We headed out onto the snow packed trail and walked about a mile before stopping to take some photos with the tripod and enjoy the scenery. The trail went much farther, and many people were out hiking it. It leads to the highest manned ranger station in Switzerland. We found we were farther away from the Jungfraujoch that we thought, everyone closer to the mountain looked really small out on the large snowfield.
Heading Back to the Jungfraujoch
The snow was really slushy because the temperature was just above freezing, and the sun was shining, melting the snow. It was difficult to walk on. Luckily we had worn hiking boots. If the snow had been firmer, we would have gone farther, but we knew it would be difficult in the slush.
We headed back to the Jungfraujoch building and finished the tour inside, which ended with a fairly long tunnel walkway. It was nice to be in a little cooler area in the tunnel, we were sweating from all of the walking outside in the sunshine, even with wearing just a shirt and jacket.
Klein Scheidegg Station In Distance Below
There was another outside area to go to that gave views of the valley side, and from there, we could see the gondola station and the station for Klein Scheidegg.
Back inside the mountain, we headed to the ice palace. This was a little better experience than the one we did at Mt. Titlis. It was much larger inside and was better lit with specialty colored lighting. After walking through the ice palace, we headed back to the main area and looked at a few items in the small store.
The Ice Palace
That concluded the tour, we had already been here about 3 hours, so we headed back to the cog rail station inside the mountain to head back down.
We were planning on going down to Klein Scheidegg and then from there taking another cog rail down to the town of Lauterbrunnen to find somewhere to eat lunch. We had to make one short connection from the Eigergletscher Station to the Klein Scheidegg Station to catch the train to Lauterbrunnen.
Heading Down To Lauterbrunnen
The trip down toward Lauterbrunnen was scenic, and the train was not very crowded. Most people were getting off at a town called Wengen, one stop above Lauterbrunnen, so we hoped off there also. It is a car free town. There was not a lot there, we were not sure why everyone got off, maybe there is access there to another part of the overall Jungfrau mountain experience, we will have to look into that later.
We found a small bakery that also had sandwiches. Stephanie got one that was a type of pie with spinach and cheese inside and I got one made out of a flaky roll, sort of like a croissant, that was filled with a ham or sausage filling. Both were heated up and were quite tasty. We ate them outside on a bench across the street by a park.
We went back to the station and took the train back up to Klein Scheidegg, we were the only ones who boarded besides one other man, and he got off at a small intermediate stop not far up the mountain and walked across a field to his property.
Enjoying Beers Outside at Klein Scheidegg
Once we arrived back at the Klein Scheidegg Station, we decided to sit out on the deck and have a couple of beers. It was already about 4:30 PM. We were there for about an hour and then took the short cog train back up to the Eigergletscher to get on the Eiger Express gondola cars heading back down the mountain to the Grindelwald Terminal. It took some doing, but we waited it out to get onto one the large 25 person gondolas by ourselves. It was nice, we could take off our masks, which are required on any of the trains or gondolas, and also in all of the buildings, so we had been wearing our masks a lot today except when we were outside. We have posted a video of a portion of the ride down in the Video Sidebar on the right of the Blog.
Our Nice Mask Free Ride In the Gondola
It was a nice ride down to the terminal, and from there, we walked to the train station to take the train up one short stop to the town of Grindelwald. On the walk back to the apartment from the station, we stopped at a pharmacy that was still open to ask if they knew anything about how we could deal with our CDC vaccine Cards and the new mandates for Swiss Vaccine Certificates that started in Switzerland yesterday. The pharmacist was also mystified with how things were being handled for non-EU travelers. She was a little dismayed that we had been told we could not board the Glacier Express in a few days without a Swiss Certificate. She suggested that if any hotels required the certificate that we just explain that we cant get one, show our CDC vaccine cards and insist that was sufficient. She also gave us information for a website that can provide us with the location of any pharmacy and/or other Covid Testing sites in Switzerland. It was some information, but certainly not a solution to our pending problem.
From there we headed back to the apartment to drop off our gear and head to the grocery store for a few items. Since we were quite tired from today’s excursion, we opted to eat some of the food we had purchased yesterday as our dinner, but needed a few more other items from the grocery. We needed some Kleenex, and also some more paper towels, plus I needed more coffee pods for the coffee machine.
View Of The North Face From Our Balcony
Once we returned to the apartment with our supplies, we put on some comfortable clothes and relaxed on our balcony with a glass of wine. We also started another load of laundry, taking advantage of the washer/dryer combination while we have one to keep all of our clothes clean.
We showered a little later and made our dinner, a spinach and ricotta tortellini, with an arabbiatta sauce, topped with asiago cheese, and some fresh bread from the grocery. It was all quite good.
We relaxed a bit more before turning in about 10:15 PM