{"id":8477,"date":"2020-08-27T17:28:13","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T17:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=8477"},"modified":"2020-08-28T12:08:45","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T12:08:45","slug":"jungfraujoch-top-of-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=8477","title":{"rendered":"Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jungfraujoch is probably Switzerland’s most popular mountain attraction. It’s reached by rail from Kleine Scheidegg, and in a normal year in excess of 1 million visitors will make the trip. It’s also very expensive – a family of 4 could easily spend a thousand francs on a day trip.<\/p>\n

But of course, these are not normal times, and the Jungfraujoch is facing a distinct shortage of visitors. To try and get more people up there the trip has been included in our summer passes, which means we can go as often as we like – for free. Off we go then. Plenty of room on the (normally packed) train.<\/p>\n

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The journey is almost entirely within a tunnel through the Eiger. We stop at a halfway point to look out at the Grindelwald glacier.<\/p>\n

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It’s difficult to convey the scale of it all. The glacier is huge.<\/p>\n

The train continues to the summit at 3454 metres (11333 feet). We step outside. It’s cold, and there’s not much air to breathe. Before us is another glacier – the Aletsch. At 23 kilometres it is the longest in the Alps, and the ice is up to 1 kilometre deep.<\/p>\n

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The view down the other side is no less impressive. Kleine Scheidegg and the Lauberhorn below us.<\/p>\n

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You can go for a walk on the glacier, to a mountain hut. It’s late afternoon so we won’t be doing this today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Inside, there are lots more attractions. This thing is like a huge snow globe.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And there’s an ice palace inside the glacier. Everything is ice – walls, floor and ceiling.<\/p>\n

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Lots of ice carvings in here, here are some penguins and an igloo.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There’s a chocolate museum, and we learn how Herr Lindt came up with the recipe for his delicious chocolate (it was an accident).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The shop attached to the museum is really good, with a big pick ‘n mix as well as all the different bars of choc. We bought loads before hopping on the train back to Scheidegg.<\/p>\n

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While we were waiting for the train back to Wengen we spotted a lone cyclist coming up the hill.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Emily has biked up from Wengen, and her goal was the top of the Lauberhorn. See you later for a well deserved beer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jungfraujoch is probably Switzerland’s most popular mountain attraction. It’s reached by rail from Kleine Scheidegg, and in a normal year in excess of 1 million visitors will make the trip. It’s also very expensive – a family of 4 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelsandtribulations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}