Les trains et Jungfraujoch

This post is a rather long one as we had packed so much into the day, and included a lot of time on trains, walking in snow, down a mountain and around a city.  

Frost on the ground

This day was one of trains and mountains, whether it be a cog railway or the much faster intercity and interregional trains.  The mountains featured both up close or one aspect of a rather beautiful landscape.

It was an early start on Friday as we planned to leave on an early train to Jungfraujoch. This involved catching a train in Lauterbrunnen that took us up into the mountains.  The first train took us via Wenger to Kleine Scheidegg  where we changed trains to go to Jungfraujoch which is the terminus and a couple thousand feet short of the top of Jungfrau (but who is counting, at 11,333 ft it is plenty high enough).   

Wengen Station

The sun had not reached our valley when we headed for the railway station where we purchased our tickets (all up cost close $575 for the two of us) and left me reeling in shock at the cost.  However it was a once in a lifetime event.  It takes around 2 hours to reach Jungfraujoch from Lauterbrunnen but the journey itself is as much fun as the reaching the to plateau where Jungfraujoch is perched.  The scenery is magnificent, reminiscent of the southern alps area but so completely different.  The vegetation consists of spindly pines and where they are not there the pasture is very green. Of course some what would be pasture was not evident as it was still covered by snow.  We were very lucky as in the days before we arrived there had been snow and the place had been covered in cloud.  The air was clear and not a  hint of haze around meaning that we could see a long way. This is both an agricultural area and a tourism area, with skiing in the winter and adventure tourism in the other seasons. 

Inside our train

Sun rising on the Alps from the train

Higher and the vegetation changes

The train wound its way up the side of the mountain until we reached Kleine Scheidegg.  We sat with our mouths slightly agape at the magnificent scenery, clicking off photos as the scenery changed.  Early morning is wonderful as the light is softer but there is still a wonderful clarity. 

The next part of the journey is mostly inside two mountains,  the Eiger and Mönch until it pops out in Jungfraujoch which is on a plateau or ridge between Mönch and Jungfrau.  Along the way there are a couple of places where the train stops and everyone gets out and races to a portal inside the Eiger to look at the views.  As an aside I had watched a movie which depicted a climb that was done on the north face of the Eiger that ended in tragedy with one of a number of climbers almost saved because he got near one of the portals but ended up freezing to death.  The others fell to their death.

Kleine Scheindegg and the train we went on

That little area in the centre of the picture is terminal point

Inside the mountain

Photograph madness at the portal

The rarefied atmosphere was really noticeable at Jungfraujoch.  I felt a little light headed for a while then the body must have adapted. 

Inside "The Sphinx", we've arrived!

We wandered around taking photos and eventually found ourselves out on a glacier which flows from the south side of Jungfraujoch.  It was very cold at -11 degrees but with the sun out and being well wrapped only our faces felt the cold. We wandered along a safe area for a few hundred metres on snow that was so dry it squeaked as we walked.  It was almost impossible to take photos looking at the little screen or through the viewfinder as the light was almost blinding. 

Shall we go this way or that way?

There were a number of skiers who were taking advantage of the fine weather to ski somewhere. 

Korean man finally gets his shot of the his girlfriend through a haze of cigarette smoke

 

One feature of the trip was the behaviour of the different nationalities.  Most of the time the Europeans and the Indians were polite and would wait their turn.  The Asians, such as the Chinese and Koreans tended to just jump queues,  bump and push without an apology evident.  It was a quite a cultural difference.  There were lots of Asian tourists in this area and of all ages.   I found it very irritating and more than once I had to remind myself that it was a cultural difference along with the reduced personal distance.

On the glacier in front of Jungfraujoch

Sorry but I am leaving you!

North face of the Eiger

After a couple of hours we took the train back down.  We got a reserve train with only us on it.  It was quite a contrast to the much fuller train when we went up to Jungfraujoch. At Kleine Scheidegg we wandered around a bit with me taking some photos and then decided we would go back down to the Wenger.  We just missed a train that was leaving but a nice person told us to get on another train that seemed to be a reserve train.  It was still interesting on the way down as we kept seeing things we had not seen before.  With the sun out it also meant that the snow was melting at quite a rate. 

A sheep with a bell on it - they all had them

Alpine scene on walk

In Wenger, which is very cute ski village and that was almost empty, we found a little café where we had some soup.  I then had a bright idea to walk down from there to Lauterbrunnen.  After all it was only a fifty minute walk and we had plenty of time.  About a quarter of the way into the walk, which was very steep, Bev decided it was not such a good idea after all.  Boots would have been much better as the path although well formed was quite rough and a couple of times we both could have sprained ankles.   As we both had clothing on for the cold by the time we got to Lauterbrunnen we were very hot.  All that said, I really enjoyed our 45 minute walk in the Alps and some of the views were stunning.

We collected our bags from the hotel and made our way to the station where I discussed with a staff member the issue with our supersaver tickets.  They were very understanding but still relieved me of the balance for the tickets.  We had three trains to take us to Geneva.  In the first train the conductor was uninterested in our ticket.  On the train to Bern from Interlaken our ticket was inspected and the woman conductor wanted the extra payment evidence.  On the train from Bern to Geneva no one inspected our ticket. 

The journey from Bern to Geneva was very interesting, it was a different type of train and was almost full, at least in second class.  It even had a place for luggage although we found out about that after we had installed ourselves, unlike the other trains we had travelled on.  The train was a double decker like the Sydney trains.

The beginning of the Rhone River

There was an abrupt change in language and architecture once we got to Lac Leman (otherwise known as Lake Geneva). French was spoken and where before most announcements were in German, French and English it was now almost entirely French.  The people were different, more gregarious.  The architecture was northern French style and there were lots of vineyards in both backyards and clinging to the sides of hills around the lake. 

Jet d'eau

In Geneva we found the appropriate tram to take us to our AirBnB hosts.  They suggested we go into the city proper and find a place near the railway station where the food would be a bit cheaper than in the older part of the city.  We took tram back to the city and got off by the river (the Rhone which drains Lac Leman) and walked to the lake's edge.  It is very pretty.  Being such a nice mild evening there were people everywhere enjoying it.  Having taken a few photos we went looking for a place to eat.  There were lots of Swiss, Italian and Lebanese places but we weren’t really interested in that sort of food and then finally we found a very noisy place called Café Art’s which had a small menu with interesting food. We had a burger with roasted potatoes and salad.  It was actually very good with lots of salad!!  While we were sitting there we were joined by a man who told us he was from Geneva but had been working in Tokyo for the last ten years and, remarkably, for a bilingual (perhaps tri-lingual) person he could not speak Japanese. 

After leaving there we caught a tram back to our place  but just as we got the first stop I realised I had left my camera at the café so we got off and had to walk back there and it had been found. There was a rather large sigh of relief from me.