We tried the Jungfrau railway to reach Europe’s highest-altitude railway station at 3,454 metres – right at the heart of the UNESCO heritage site “Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch”.
We were given our tickets to visit Jungfraujoch a few months ago now and had been saving them until after the summer when we had more time. I had been checking the weather for a while and spotted the perfect day a couple of weeks ago when the forecast was sunny and clear.
We packed a picnic and set off early to start our journey. We parked the car at the train station in Interlaken Ost and headed for the platform.
We were fortunate enough to have first class tickets for this part of the journey and made ourselves nice and comfortable for the trip to Grindelwald. As you would imagine, this is a lovely journey through beautiful green countryside and the time flew by as we admired the view and we soon arrived at the station for the next part of our journey.
It’s well organised so that the waiting time isn’t too long between trains and we were soon installed on the second train. Here we had a carriage almost to ourselves so we settled down and had a snack while enjoying the view.
The last train was really crowded and we had to squeeze ourselves into some little fold out seats at the back of the train. We couldn’t appreciate the full view from there but the train stopped at Eismeer (ice sea) where we could get out to take a look at the view below and a lot of the journey was through a tunnel so it didn’t matter much. Little video screens on the train gave us more information about where we were going which was interesting as we went further into the mountain.
It’s fascinating as you climb higher to watch the landscape changing from lush green to more rocky scenery and finally snow at the summit.
When we arrived at the top it’s a short walk to the main viewing area where we put on our hats and gloves and headed outside.
It was a bit of a shock to be outside in the cold after starting the day in t-shirts and it was rather windy which Elio didn’t like much. It was really beautiful though and we walked around the viewing platform soaking up the view (and taking pictures) before we headed back inside.
Next, we followed the signs towards the ice palace. Alba was very excited about this as she is very keen on “Frozen” at the moment and her eyes lit up as soon as entered. It was quite slippery underfoot and Jude found it hard to stay upright so make sure you wear good shoes. It was very busy so we made our way round slowly which gave us chance to enjoy the experience and the children loved looking at the various ice sculptures.
There is lots more to explore up there with a snow fun park, Lindt chocolate experience and you can even play the hole in one golf game where you can win a watch!
Back inside and there are restaurants and shops to explore before heading back down the mountain.
A few observations from us: make sure you pack warm clothes and good shoes. Jungfraujoch is located 3,454 metres above sea level and we were advised that the children needed to drink a lot so pack some water too. We decided to do it in one day which meant two hours of driving then 3 hours of train to get to the top, and then the same again for the return. This was a bit much for the children so in hindsight we would probably have stayed somewhere closer overnight to split the travelling a bit. That would also have enabled us to take an earlier train when it might have been quieter at the top - we also heard that there are lower fares available for the earlier trains so its worth checking.
We really loved this experience which was truly unforgettable and definitely one to add to your Swiss bucket list!
Information
Parking : Yes (to be paid)
Toilets : Yes
Accessibility : Baby-Carriers recommended but probably manageable with a folding pushchair
Time : 1 day
Weather : you can check the weather here!
Price: You can book your tickets here.
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