Wednesday 5 October: Switzerland - the mountains

Switzerland is all about the mountains, so we decided to get up as high as possible. We took the train up to Jungfraujoch - "the Top of Europe". It's the highest railway station in Europe, over 3000 metres above sea level.

The train leaves from Interlaken Ost and runs up to a place called Lauterbrunnen. From here we changed to another train to Kleine Scheidegg. This is getting up pretty high - 2061 metres (6762 feet) and there is a lot of snow around.

The last section of the train ride is on a rack railway - a toothed wheel under the train engages a toothed rail to provide the necessary traction up the steep slopes involved. Almost the entire length of this section (over 9 kilometres) is within a tunnel under the Eiger. It could be claustrophobic, but there are in-train videos and a couple of stops where you can look out onto the glaciers.

At the top, there's a big complex of restaurants, exhibitions etc. We took a further 100 metre ride in a lift to The Sphinx - the highest point of the complex. This is at 3571 metres (11760 feet), and that's pretty high. It's cold (-5C) and the air is thin. We had some fun in the snow and took a few pictures before heading back into the warmth.

After some time we caught the train back to Kleine Schedegg, then changed to another rack railway to Grindlewald. Here we had a look around (it's a very pleasant little place) and had some very nice coffee and strudel. The railway between Grindlewald and Interlaken was damaged in floods last year, so it was a bus ride back to town.

It was a long day but thoroughly enjoyable. Tomorrow we'll have a look at some different parts of the mountains.