The Scroop's European Holiday: Lauterbrunnen

Today we are heading up to the Jungfraujoch which involves a cog wheel train from Lauterbrunnen to Klein Scheidegg. We then get off and transfer to the cog wheel train that takes us the rest of the way to the Jungfraujoch. They call the Jungfrau “The top of Europe”, not sure why because the Matterhorn is higher than all the mountains in this region and the Matterhorn Glacier paradise (the area you get to when you go up the Matterhorn) is higher than the Jungfraujoch. Anyway, it’s still bloody high at 11,782ft and probably feels higher because we are coming from a lower base compared to Zermatt which is at the base of the Matterhorn. The cog wheel train from Lauterbrunnen takes about 45 minutes and the cog wheel train to the Jungfrau takes a further 55 minutes. Most of the 55 minute ride is through a tunnel so you don’t see a great deal until you leave the train station at the Jungfrau and enter the massive building that is planted up there. We get off the train and follow the route that has been mapped out for tourists. It’s fantastic, the kids ran outside and played in the snow and there was heaps of it, people could have been skiing up there. The kids had a ball in the snow and they took an extra pair of socks to use as gloves. There is so many things to do up there you could stay all day. The only thing that put us off was the mass upon mass of Chinese tourists. These people are rude and they barge and push. Kris and I have become so fed up with these people we are giving back what they give us. I don’t care how old they are either. I gave this 80 year old a pretty good hip and shoulder and it felt good, Woosha would have been proud. Apart from that the experience was fantastic, although, the altitude did affect me. I was huffing and puffing like a steam train. Kris and the kids didn’t seem to be affected at all but I was gone. We caught the train back down just after lunch and decided to jump off one station before Kleine Scheidegg so we could hike down. It was great fun and we came across this lake that had a little rock pool set up off to the side. In the pool were 3 bench seats and at the foot off the seats were bubbles like a spa. The kids took off their shoes and jumped in and kept sooking about how cold it was. So I took off my shoes and walked in and oh my god, it was freezing. It was freezing to the point that even after 2 seconds with your feet in the water they would ache with pain. We continued down to the Kleine Scheidegg train station and caught the next train down to Wengen where we jumped off and took the cable car back up to Manlichenn. We had been up this mountain twice before but we wanted to go up when there was no cloud cover so we could see the views into Lauterbrunnen and we weren’t disappointed, the views were incredible. We couldn’t stay long as the last cable car was leaving to go back down to Wengen so we jump on and once down take the train back to Lauterbrunnen. We get back to the apartment and start packing. Tomorrow we head to Monterosso on the Cinque Terre and we have an early start.

We love Switzerland, we love Switzerland a lot. There are only a few things we don’t like, the place seemed to shut up shop around lunch time-ish for a couple of hours, which was a little annoying, the food is rubbish and it is so bloody expensive. Other than that Switzerland is AWESOME!!!!!