Hotel Interlaken - Interlaken, Switzerland

When you google, “Is it worth it to go to the top of the Jungfraujoch when it’s cloudy?” the answer is a simple, “No!”  But today was the perfect, blue sky climb to the top of the world kind of day.  There are two ways of going to the top: “with reservations” and “without”.  If you miss your scheduled train, you join the long line of “without.”  

The trip up was exhilarating, with a very long gondola ride along the infamous north face of Mt Eiger, followed by a cog railroad ride which was surprisingly all one tunnel to the top.  The train stops for five minutes, so you can look out the windows cut into the rocks. (Deb made the trip to the window and back to the train in about a minute - nope, not gettin’ left behind here!). Once on top there is a prescribed 90 minute walking tour, much of it displays inside tunnels.  We picked what we wanted to see and what we wanted to skip.

Mt Monch

 Took an elevator to an observatory 300 ft up, and walked around on a snow pack outside.  Ate a nice lunch and returned.  All in all, a well worth it, two hours on the “Top of Europe.”  The Jungfrau is actually the third tallest in Europe, but it’s the highest us common folk are going to get.

Back down in Interlaken, it’s downright warm, so we switch to short sleeves, eat some Indian food (but with Swiss beer) and pack for France (or as Deb says, “ Au revoir aux germanophones!”)

Jungfrau