All the way to Jungfraujoch, and real fondue!

(note – internet still unavailable at the house. Request for calls for important information stands.)

Well, it’s the somethingth of December and I’m blogging the 19th of November. Not too far behind, right? Eh.

The 19th was a Sunday, the Sunday we had been told by the Swiss would likely be bright and clear and a great day to top the Jungfraujoch. It’s a very expensive round trip, so you really don’t want to get up there in whiteout conditions.

Those crazy Swiss were right! It was a beautiful day. We could even see to the tops of some of the foothills around Interlaken that had been hidden by fog.

We waited for the bus to the train station in the archetypical Swiss sunlight, me thrilled to bits that I had finally replaced the sunglasses lost on the night train to Luxor. The train ride up to Kleine Scheidegg I’ve already blogged, as we made it that far on our Friday trip.  We had further difficulties taking pictures from the train, since the sunlight contrasted with the shadows of the valleys so strongly. Beautiful for the eyes, perhaps not so much for the camera.

At Kleine Scheidegg, we made the final decision to continue on to the top, since it was perhaps clearer up there than down in Interlaken.

I’ve read some complaints about the ride up from Kleine Scheidegg to the top of the Jungfrau. The train is outside for just a couple of minutes at the beginning of the ascent, and then it passes into a tunnel from which it does not emerge.

However, there are two stops at scenic overlooks in the tunnel, where you get a very quick five minutes to jump out, take a picture through the picture window, and jump back on before being left behind. It struck me as a little strange, because the stops are obviously not there for anything but the tourists – but it was a great idea, as it did give you a mental image of what these engineers had to go through to push this tunnel through to the top of the Jungfraujoch.

The view from the first station was still a little green, a panorama from which it was still possible to see small towns below. However, the second station was all ice and Alps. It took my breath away… or was that the increase in altitude?

The viewing station at the top of the Jungfraujoch is shocking in its level of amenities. There’s a complex with three full-service restaurants and a self-service bar, several gift shops, a large viewing platform (known as the Sphinx), an Ice Palace which we’ll come to later, and lots and lots of working bathrooms. (I can’t tell you how impressed we were, especially Auntie, with the quality and quantity of Swiss bathrooms… even more so given that we had come from Italy.)

The increase in altitude had left Auntie feeling pretty fragile, so we found her a place to sit near the self service bar and went to explore the immediate area. We started by the binocular table.

Then, with Auntie doing some breathing exercises, we went to the area just outside of the bar complex to see what could be seen. It was like being on top of the clouds. The white between these peaks is a large glacier – but it looked like we were sitting on the cloud layer. And it was cold, very cold. On our way out we passed a woman crying “I can’t get warm!” while a man with her briskly rubbed her hands.

During the summer up here, there are all sorts of activities; dogsledding, hole-in-one golf, alpine slides, hiking, cross-country skiing, et cetera. All closed in November. However, we saw some people outside of the roped-in area making their own hiking trails or snow angels. I just can’t believe they would ignore this scary sign!

Being outside gave us a great view of both the larger bar and restaurant area and the Sphinx viewing platform another 400 feet or so up. I can’t imagine how difficult it was to build all of this up here, especially when the only rail line up is pretty small-gauge.

With our tootsies and patooties half frozen off, we went back inside to check on Auntie and see if we couldn’t convince her out of the self-service bar. We got some gluhwein, or hot mulled wine, and a hot chocolate for Auntie to jump-start the warming process.

I was enjoying my gluhwein and the view out of the enormous picture windows when I heard Auntie behind me – “psst. PSST. Hey!” I turned around to see what she was gesturing at only to find an advertisement against big package tours. These people had probably been to 5 countries in 10 days on their odyssey across Europe, and it was leaving them decidedly worse for the wear. I especially love the guy on the far right who has just given in completely and put on his sleep mask.

Somewhat revived by the hot chocolate, Auntie became game for seeing the viewing platform, though there was a bit of a frantic search for elevators. I’ve never been anywhere near that altitude before, and I soon found out that the signs at the bottom of all of the stairways saying “Please Go Slowly!” are there for a reason. Wow, do you get dizzy fast.

We got outside, where we have a bunch of pictures proving that Auntie made it to the top of the Jungfraujoch. Can’t tell the emotion here… excited?

We were taking it very slowly, which is one of the reasons I was so surprised to see people smoking on top of the mountain. Seems like they would get such a head rush they’d fall down, but I guess not.

After only a few minutes, the cold started to set in again, so we went back inside and made for the Ice Palace. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a building made of ice before (though this one probably has concrete foundations somewhere under all that), but I’ve been wanting to go to the Ice Hotel they build every year in Sweden, so I was excited to see this.

Auntie made it about 15 feet or so down the ice-paved tunnel marking the beginning of the Ice Palace before backing out, citing double knee surgery as the reason she didn’t want to be sliding around on this particular ice. OK, makes sense.

Directly around the corner from the terminus of the long tunnel we found an icy Eskimo couple, so we corralled a passing man into taking our picture.

The Ice Palace turned out to be a fairly large area, filled with little icy tableaux, a non-functioning ice bar, and lots of small tunnels. To me, the ice animals looked a lot like bubbles – especially these penguins.

There was one area we hadn’t been to yet that we absolutely had to see. We weren’t about to miss the Sphinx viewing platform! So, over to the extra-tall elevators and up into the vaguely Space Age building for what’s billed as the highest view in Europe. And there’s no denying that it is really high up there.

We went outside to take in the view and found these very fluffy birds entertaining the children. They must live at such an altitude…

The view from the Sphinx was really pretty similar to that from the viewing area below, though here the footing was a little more certain because there was a grate to stand on. Of course, if you looked down through the grate, you might get a little dizzy again, since there was a good 100 foot drop under parts of the metal.

There was also a more close-up view of some of the nearby glaciers. It’s hard to believe that the vast majority of this never melts… or at least until recently.

This time of year, the last trains down from Jungfraujoch leave before 4, so we had to be back to catch the train. I mean, I assume they wouldn’t leave you up there overnight, but I didn’t want to test it. I was not happy to be leaving… being there was so amazing. I’ve never been anywhere like it, with the constancy of the snow and ice and the peaks reaching up out of the glaciers. It was wonderful, though I wouldn’t have minded it being a little warmer… they should work on that, don’t you think?

We shared the train ride down with this adorable Swiss dog. Don’t you love his little bandanna? He spent most of the train ride sitting in a window seat, leaning and drooling on the window.

The ride back to Interlaken felt really short, though I know it took about an hour and a half. We made it back pretty hungry, and we found out that the busses weren’t running for an hour and a taxi wanted about $12 to take us back to our hotel.

Husbear went into the open tourist information booth and got a recommendation on a good restaurant near downtown where we could really do the fondue thing right. A bus pulled up that we hoped was going in the right direction, so Husbear got on and tried to talk to the driver to see if he was going anywhere near the restaurant. Both Husbear and the driver were getting a little frustrated with the language barrier, and the driver eventually told us just to get on and he’d help us figure it out later.

Several other people got on the bus with us, and as we left and started winding through the streets of Interlaken, they got off one by one. Eventually, we were the only people on the bus, and the bus driver called Husbear up to the front with his map. This was when we found out that we were in fact on the right bus, and that we’d get within a block or so of our destination if we held tight for a bit of a circuitous route. Fine with us! We couldn’t believe it – helpful bus driver? Happy to be doing his job? With a smiling picture of him and his name right up at the front of the bus? This was a refreshing experience.

So, we did make it to Restaurant Laterne safely and soundly, and went inside with high hopes. We were a little early for dinner, around 7, but they seated us happily and brought us menus in English and Swiss German.

Though it was frightfully more expensive than we had been expecting, we ordered a beef fondue for two and a cheese fondue for one. Sorry to tell you we did pass on the option of our meat being from a horse, though the menu helpfully stated that they got all of their horsemeat directly from the good old USA.

You might not have known this, or maybe you did, but the United States exports an awful lot of horsemeat for consumption in the European Union.

Back on track – we were served brown bread, which we wolfed down with some sort of herbaceous mustardy mayonnaise. Almost all Swiss sauces seem to be based on mayo, with the exception of that ubiquitous onion gravy, which seems to be based on beef bouillon cubes. Anyway, this was yummy.

After not too many minutes, our waiter came back with an enormous rotating tray and two large pots, one with bubbling cheese and one with bubbling beef broth, and a few things that he set on fire for heat and a big sauce boat with four different sauces and a fruit plate and two big meat plates and potato croquettes and rosti, again, and another one of those scoops filled with bread for the cheese fondue.

Once we found room for everything, we realized just how happy we were to be seeing all of these vegetables and fruits, even if most of the vegetables did come out of a can. It was like the fondue was surrounded by a 1970s American relish tray. Of course, I am a big fan of 1970s style relish trays, so no problem here.

Interactive food is always fun, and we had a great time cooking this and dipping that as the restaurant slowly filled with Swiss. We were even able to turn off the radiator at our table, so we didn’t die of heat exhaustion. Great times. I’m most happy that we got fondue Bourguignonne (that’s how they spelled it on the menu… but it looks wrong to me!) instead of Chinois, because the Chinois is cooked in a pot of bubbling oil and has a lot more potential for disaster – at least in my hands.

After a great meal, we exited the restaurant to discover it was pouring, so we had a cab called to get us home. Like almost everywhere in Switzerland, the cabbie was playing American country music. No, I have no idea why the Swiss love American country music. Why not?

Once more, good night to you and to Switzerland! Only one more post about CH, and then we move on to Anzio/Lazio and the area south of Rome.

girlie

Comments

[craig]

Wow, really enjoyed reading your post. Wife and I going to Zurich for 3 days after touring Italy and stubbing on this post has me wanting to try this trip :-)

[Rachel @ boots in the oven]

Thanks, Craig! I know the train was expensive, but it was a lot of fun.