This was indeed a very eventful day. We traveled to Jungfraujoch (pronounced as Young fro Yokh and means literally peaks like a young Frau – a girl) - the highest snow covered mountain peak in Europe - about 300 kms away from our location. What an interesting and amazing journey it was. We got up early in the morning and got ready by 6.30 am so that we could walk across to the La Tour Peilz Railway station very close to our home.
RanjBharath had chalked out our entire journey beautifully. We were required to travel by 6 different trains to reach the summit! The meticulous details including the names of the 6 stations where we were required to change our trains, the arrival departure timings and even the platforms on which the trains would arrive and depart were a great help indeed.
We boarded the first train at La Tour de Peilz at 7.03 am sharp which took us to Platform No 9 of Lausanne Railway station at 7.26 am sharp. We got down at Lausanne and moved to Platform No1 where we boarded an Inter City Express that left Lausanne for Berne at 7.45 am sharp. The Lausanne railway station in fact all the railway stations were like so many bee hives buzzing with activity – so many passengers moving about their work – just like the Local railway stations at Mumbai – only difference being the impeccable cleanliness of theses stations and what punctuality!
The journey lasted 1 hr and 11 mts and we reached Berne (capital of Switzerland) at 8.56 am sharp on Platform No 8.During this train journey we moved to a Restaurant in the train itself and had some coffee. We left Berne at 9.04 am reaching Interlaken Ost at 9.57 am at Platform No 5! From Interlaken Ost we departed at 10.05 am from Platform No 2A. We kept referring to the Route Chart which RanjBharath had made, throughout the journey.
We arrived at Laterbrunnen the start point of the journey up the mountains, at10.25 am but here we could not catch the next train at 10.30 am as we had to buy our train tickets from Latebrunnen to Jungfraujoch via Klein Schedigg.As this was the start point of the Ghat section we put on our additional warm overcoats which RanjBharath had given to us, and began our journey upwards.
The train from Laterbrunnen to Klein Schedigg was more like a toy train – it reminded me of the train to Darjeeling – the only difference being that this was an electric train as against the conventional train of the Darjeeling Railway.
The journey however was one of the most picturesque travels, which we have ever made. We could have a fantastic view of the snow-covered mountain ranges of the Alps throughout the journey.
From Klein Schedigg to Jung Frau Joch the travel is entirely through a 6 to 7 kms long tunnel winding its way to Jungfraujoch. The Jungfraujoch Railways run the section from Laterbrunnen to Jungfraujoch.
In the train they have a closed circuit TV which gives all the details of the history of the tunnel as to who conceived it and how it was built 88 years back. Not only does it eliminate boredom travelling for almost two hours through only a tunnel but is informative as well. En route within the tunnel they have halts from where you can see the valley down below through glass panels embedded within the tunnel - a fantastic piece of engineering work.
We reached the Jungfraujoch – the top of Europe by about 1 in the afternoon. Although the temperature outside was minus 7 deg C the temperature inside is room temperature. There are a number of lifts and other passageways and also a detailed map that tells you exactly where everything is located.
Sphinx Palace is the top most spot from where you can see down below but the weather was bad outside due to a snow blizzard and visibility was almost nil. So although we had gone all the way up after nearly 6 hours of travel we could not see anything down below.
From there we decided to take a lunch break. There are a number of restaurants on JFJ from which you can choose. We were pleasantly surprised to find a place where they served excellent vegetarian Indian food – Tomato soup, Rice, Dal Makhani, a mixed vegetable, Chana, Curds and bread. This was an extension of what they call Bollywood restaurant – which was closed! A Swiss lady is running the establishment. Cooking done by a Haryanvi cook whom I met and spoke in Hindi! There were a number of other Indian tourists too who had come in groups.
After lunch we went around the Ice Palace - an amazing place where they have different sculptures made out of ice including Donald Duck! Whew was it cold! Thanks to the thermal clothing we could withstand the cold without much difficulty. Although we carried our gloves we did not use them.
There is an Exhibition too which was closed and so we could not see it. We went to what is called Plateau which is nothing else but getting into the open from the closed door environment. However thanks to the snow blizzard we could not venture out into the open!
We were back to La tour de Peilz by 8.30 pm thanks to the meticulous train system of Switzerland – one of the best railway systems in the world – after an extremely interesting journey to JFJ and back – a must visit for any tourist to Switzerland.
