Michael Cranmer experiences Transports of Delight on the Jungfrau at the Top of Europe.
Stout Boots and Knapsacks.
On August 3, 1811, Swiss brothers Johann and Hieronymus Meyer laced up their stout boots, stuffed some bread and cheese in their knapsacks, and did what no one had done before… climbed the 4,158m Jungfrau. It was an astounding feat at the time, but now, anyone with £108.00 – around the cost of filling your car with fuel – can hop on a train at Interlaken and clatter up to the Jungfraujoch Station just 695m below the site of the Meyers’s triumph. They had to walk back, but today’s visitors have the choice of ways to get down…on foot (of course), railway, zipwire, Trotti bike, go cart, or parapente. Let’s try all of them, railway first.
Adolf’s Hunch.
The canny Swiss have long recognised the potential economic value of tourism. In 1893 industrialist Adolf Guyer-Zeller conceived a plan to blast a tunnel through the Eiger and Mönch right to the summit of the Jungfrau. Although some might regard this a desecration of the Big Three – Ogre, Monk, and Virgin – profit won over conservation and the top station eventually opened in 1912. Adolf’s hunch has paid off. Profits last year were CHF 79.76 million – that’s £68.6 million.
Going Dizzy.
I boarded the train just outside my hotel in Grindelwald, transferred onto the new Eiger Express tricable car to the Eiger Glacier station and up to the Jungfraujoch. The journey winds up though stunning scenery until it enters the rock where thirty men died blasting and hacking out the 7 km tunnel. A pause for pictures midway at the Eismeer viewing point before trundling off, the air growing thinner as we ascended toward the 4,000m zone where there’s only 17% of the oxygen at sea level.
The terminus is a dizzying experience and not just because of the altitude. Carved from the Virgin’s stone, there is anything you didn’t know you wanted. A souvenir shop selling everything souvenir shops sell – snow globes, cowbell keyrings, mugs, chocolate (naturally) and a ceiling festooned with Swiss Army knives; a Chopard jewellers where you can buy an Alpine Eagle 41 XP TT Automatic Titanium watch for £20,454 (they will even gift wrap it free of charge).
Lunch and a stiff drink may be necessary after such excitement and the Jungfraujoch has something for everyone, from a Korean King Noodle Bar, a Bollywood Restaurant, to fine dining in the Crystal À La Carte, where a bottle of Reine des Glaces Humagne Blanche Barrique Gregor Kuonen VS (limitiert) will set you back by £177.38. I passed on all of the above and zipped up my jacket to explore the real world outside.
Height of Fashion.
The brutal commercialism inside was a stark contrast to the utterly jaw-dropping beauty that lay before me. The day was sunny with a slight breeze, but today, where the lowest recorded temperature is -45ºC, it was a brisk -7 ºC. The air clear and heady as a glass of Gordon’s London Gin. Stretching away into the distance was the 14-mile long Aletsch Glacier, largest in the Alps. Alpine Choughs circled and landed on the safety railings, accustomed to us humans.
Less accustomed to the alien mountainscape was a young Asian fashionista in a flimsy flyaway dress posing for her iPhone-wielding friend, totally unaware of the beauty behind her. What would the Meyer brothers have thought of them? It is feasible to descend from here, but I opted to take the Jungfrau Eiger Walk beneath the notorious North Face.
Wall of Death.
The gentle trail starts at the Eigergletscher station and is dominated by the towering mass of the Eiger’s 1,800-metre Mordwand (‘Murder Wall’). Since 1935, at least 64 climbers have died attempting the north face, hence the German nickname. You pass the old Mittellegi mountain hut, the inside preserved from old Alpine pioneering days, and the impossibly clear blue Fallboden lake. Too nippy for a dip. You’re soon at Kleine Scheidegg station and the train back to Grindelwald.
Dotty on a Trotti.
Round the other side of the Eiger a short bus ride from Grindelwald, is the confusingly named First, which serves as a winter ski destination and summer playground. The lifts whizz up to 2168m and a restaurant and First Cliff Walk by Tissot (notice the watch theme running through this narrative). Opportunities here for pausing at the end of the vertiginous walkway to take selfies or TikToks of your bestie. Every mountain resort now feels the need to build structures up and around their peaks.
But this was only the start of it. Next way down, not around, is the First Flyer, four parallel zip wires, which you hang beneath face down, and hurtle for 800m at speeds up to 50 mph screaming all the while, as is appropriate. If your heart has held up to that, the next wheeze is the First Mountain Cart, a three-wheeler with basic steering and brakes.
The gravel track winds over three kms and elicits more whoops than screams. Finally, you transfer to a Trotti bike (curiously, marketed as First Railway??). Remove the seat and pedals off a step-through bike, add fat tyres, brakes and a simple platform and you have a Trotti. Oh, and don’t forget to wear a helmet. Hop on, one foot behind the other, and let gravity do the rest. The route was delightful, winding through meadows, cow bells tinkling, bees buzzing, the sun shining, the scents of wildflowers and hay. So delightful that I had to stop and savour the moment. It could only have been in Switzerland up a mountain.
Peaceful…tranquil. Then a mad Trotti speeder whooshed past shouting and spoilt my moment. The trail became a farmer’s lane as I approached the outskirts of town and there, on the right, dead opposite the church, was Fiescherblick Hotel and Restaurant, where I parked the scooter, sat on the sunny terrace under a huge parasol and ordered a small Nordwandbräu Pale Ale, as local as local can be, the cool beer neutralizing the adrenaline from the mad day. I bid farewell to Grindelwald and transferred by train to Interlaken, way below in the valley, for an early start and a date with a paraglider.
Days like This.
06.30 Quick weather check: sunny, light wind, good visibility. Quick me check: knees not knocking, hands not shaking. All systems go. I rendezvoused with my pilot for a briefing at the take-off point at Beatenberg Amisbühl, clipped into the tandem seat – me in front – then “Ok, run, run, run!” the wing filled as our legs bicycled madly down the slope, and suddenly we were airborne and flying.
Time to take stock. Far away the peaks of the Alps, capped in snow, shone in the early sunlight. There was the Jungfrau, twice our 2,000m altitude. We circled and wheeled as a thermal lifted us like a giant’s hand manipulating puppets on a string. Below the sun caught Lake Brienz to the east and Lake Thun to the west, linked by the river Aare. As we hung, free from the bounds of the earth below, suspended under our thin nylon canopy, Van Morrison’s song ‘Days Like This’ came to me –
‘When you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this.
When no one’s in a hurry there’ll be days like this.
Oh my mama told me there’ll be days like this’.
Journeys in Switzerland are a pleasure not a necessary chore, and mine home was just that. I took the Bernese Oberland Lines Lake cruiser from Interlaken West to Thun, lunch enroute, and disembarked at Thun for the train to Zurich airport, all connections meshing perfectly as is the case in Switzerland.
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