Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe Day Trip

Ride the railway that shouldn't exist. In 1912, after sixteen years of tunnelling through the Eiger and the Monch, Swiss engineers opened a station at 3,454 metres. It still holds the record as the highest in Europe. The day begins at Interlaken Ost and climbs fast. The Eiger Express gondola carries you beneath the Eiger's north face to Eigergletscher, where the Jungfrau Railway disappears into the mountain for the final ascent in darkness. You emerge somewhere else entirely: snow in every season, thin bright air, and the Aletsch Glacier below you, at 22 kilometres the longest in the Alps and a UNESCO World Heritage site. At the top, a lift rises to the Sphinx observation deck at 3,571 metres. Walk the tunnels of the Ice Palace carved into living glacier ice, step onto the plateau between the Monch and Jungfrau summits, and follow the Alpine Sensation walkway telling the story of the men who built the line. The descent takes the classic route through Kleine Scheidegg and Wengen, past the Staubbach Falls into the Lauterbrunnen valley. Bring warm layers, sunglasses and sunscreen. It can sit below freezing at the summit in July, and most people feel the altitude for the first twenty minutes, so take it slowly when you arrive.