Just as forecasted, the sky cleared up on Tuesday so DH and I headed out early for Jungfraujoch, also referred to as 'Top of Europe'. A trip to Jungfraujoch was what I was most excited about when planning our activities in Switzerland and it turned out to be just as great as I expected, minus an unforeseen incident which forced us to descend sooner than planned. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience and if you have not seen something similar before (like me), you should definitely go!
DH and I bought the 4 day Swiss Pass which gave us 25% discount for Jungfraujoch tickets and 50% discount to many other attractions. The trip to Jungfraujoch took roughly 2.5 hours each way. Our hotel was near Interlaken West so we caught the train to Interlaken Ost for a quick change to a regional train heading for Lauterbrunnen. Once we reached Lauterbrunner, we got on a cogwheel train that took us all the way to Kleine Scheidegg, where we made our last change to another cogwheel train heading for Jungfraujoch. Before reaching Jungfraujoch, the train made two quick stops at Eigerwald and Eismeer for visitors to take photos at the viewing platforms at the station.
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| Sphinx Observatory |
As the train approached our final stop at 3,454meters, the difference in temperature and lack of oxygen was apparent but I was so excited that I barely noticed the effects the change in altitude would soon have on me. DH and I followed the tour map direction and headed for the Sphinx Observatory first. As this was my very first time EVER to see snow in person, I was beyond amazed by the vast mountains covered in thick white snow all around me. After about twenty minutes, we headed to the 'Snow Fun' Park. We had a blast playing in the snow, taking photos and throwing snow at each other until I embarrassingly slipped while trying to form a snow ball, landed on my bottom and almost blacked out. Everything happened so fast that even now I still do not know what exactly happened, but it seems the sudden fall somehow sent me into shock which added to the altitude sickness that I was already experiencing and made it much worse. Anyway, as I was feeling extremely ill and could not breathe properly even after resting for almost an hour ,we decided there was only one way for me to feel better and that was to descend to a lower altitude. I would have liked to see the Ice Palace as well as record a video of the magnificent surrounding mountain views from Jungfraujoch but we did have a great time (albeit short) and thanks to this experience, I was much more prepared for my next mountain adventure, one that I will share in my next post.
