Itinerary followed during this Interrail throughout Germany, Denmark and Switzerland

Cologne - Koblenz - Copenhagen - Helsingor - Hillerod - Roskilde - Berlin - Potsdam - Rhine cruise - Freiburg - Strasbourg - Black Forest - Rhine Waterfalls - Schaffhausen - Stein am Rhein - Konstanz - Zurich - Basel - Interlaken - Luzern - Zermatt - Brig - Bern - Geneva - Heidelberg - Munich - Dachau - Fussen - Nuremberg - Rothenburg (ODT) - Wurzburg - Jungfrau and Lauterbrunnen - Brienz - Geneva

Are you ready? Now I am telling an exceptional day, a perfect excursion that will make you feel envy. As I had explained we returned to Switzerland to try our luck with the weather at the Jungfrau. We played the last card the last day, and we came from Wurzburg by train through a long exhausting journey of 8 h. and several train connections. We slept at Interlaken, in the Happy Inn, as the previous stay in the village. We kept all the necessary information since then.
We woke up at 5.45 in the morning, making a superhuman effort for an end of an interrail. I looked through the window and the sky was full of stars! It seemed that we were going to be lucky. We walked towards the train station to take the train leaving at 6.30. Why so early? The price is much cheaper for the first train (and despite it, it is really expensive, perhaps the most expensive spot of the entire interrail). Before spending this fortune you should be sure that the weather is sunny, or you will throw your money away. For this purpose there is a live video camera at the Jungfrau that you can check in the train station. The stars are the best signal. Very excited with the possibility of enjoying the beautiful Switzerland that we had always imagined, the trip began.

First of all I will describe the valleys and the different options to visit, since there are more spots than the Jungfrau. From Interlaken you find two main valleys that allow for marvellous excursions: Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. The Jungfrau can be reached through both valleys, but the shortest crosses Lauterbrunnen. There is the possibility of ascending through one valley and descending across the other one. In Lauterbrunnen we changed the train to start the ascension in a special train.
From here you can start another popular excursion to the Schilthorn. It is a mountain 2971 m. high that keeps on its summit a rotating restaurant with impressive sightseeing over the valley and the Jungfrau. It is a smaller mountain than the one we had decided to visit and it is isolated from the mountainous chain. Since we could only enjoy one day, we had selected the most typical journey, but the most extraordinary at the same time.
From these valleys there are numerous trains, cable cars and paths that show delighted the landscape and nature lovers. The only problem is the price of every transport that you may take.

And now we continue with the trip. The cogwheel train goes up slowly. It was still quite dark but on the other side we contemplated the dawn at the Alps. From the windows you see those wooden Swiss houses situated on the slopes in the middle of green pastures that seem carpets. Some houses are isolated, some others constitute a tiny village, and the Alps always at the background of this scenario. The only way for the inhabitants to go down would be to walk for long or to take this train. Finally we reached Kleine Scheidegg , the last change of train. This is the gathering point for the trains coming from Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald.

We are 2061 m. high and the views of the three alpine masses are impacting. From the left to the right we find the Eiger (3970 m.), the Monch (4099 m.) and the Jungfrau (4158 m.), with the snow-covered summits over the green carpet. Now it was a clear day and the visibility was total.

We sat ecstatic in the new train that enters at once the Eiger's bowels. The 1200 m. of ascension that still remains are completed through the inside of the mountains.
During the ascension the train makes two stops to avoid problems with the sharp changes of height. And what a nice view! The first one at 2865 m. We went down and walked until big windows where you contemplate an awesome landscape .

Downwards, far away, there is the wonderful Grindelwald valley, with tiny houses scattered across it. We returned to the coach until 3160 m. This time the sightseeing shows a huge and superb glacier, called Eismeer, that makes you feel insignificant.

Finally we reached the highest train station across Europe, the Jungfraujoch, 3454 m. high. The journey from Interlaken lasted for two hours and a half.
When we left the train we entered a complex built inside the mountain, with all the comforts. You can do several things.
We began at the Ice Palace . As its name indicates, it is a cave made of ice. It is amazing and it keeps some ice sculptures. It is very cold. They constructed it on the anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

Afterwards we took a lift up to the Sphinx , the observatory and measurement point located at 3574 m. high. Indeed this complex is a researching station to gather data about radiation, weather, geology or astronomy, etc. The height is very imposing except if you are a climber. The panorama from the Sphynx's terrace is incredible and you cover the valley until Interlaken.

On the other side there is an immense glacier more than 20 km. long, called Aletsch. If you have read all the interrail you may remember that I told you about it during our trip to Zermatt and Brig. If you look downwards you distinguish many people walking along the glacier, through a prepared path. A reassuring fact: the Sphynx has been built in a way that protects us completely from the thunders. One of the facts that are more frightening is that despite a day is clear, a sudden thunder could fall due to the height we are.

The walk through the glacier is very amusing. The first advice you should keep in mind is that the height and the oxygen absence make you get tired quickly. You have to walk slower than habitually.

I checked it on my own when I played the fool while I was going downstairs. 5 seconds of explosive activity were enough for me to need two minutes to recover, and I am a sportsman. You should be ready for the cold with every clothes available to resist the 0ºC or less. You should carry your sunglasses as well. An adequate pair of shoes would be nice, but we stayed with our sneakers since it has no sense to carry trekking shoes in an interrail. In our case it was such a sunny day that we felt hot.

During the walk there are precious views of the valley and the glacier, as well as the summits of the Monch and the Jungfrau. If you force your sight you will see the mountaineers on the slope going towards the summit. We walked along the glacier and enjoyed it very much, like children. The snow in summer is a great and new experience. When we got bored we returned. There is some entertainment to do here: ski, dog sleds or snowdisk.

The ski station is very small and expensive so we didn't think about it. We were for a while observing the dogs of the dog sleds, called huskies, and we attended an amazing and great performance for us.

One of the dogs began to make a sort of howls, but very strange, so strange that the children started to laugh. Subsequently the rest of the pack started to howl at the same time for a long while. It was captivating. As for the snowdisks they are simply funny. They give you a plastic disk to slide over a snow slope. The most funny was to see a row of Japanese kamikazes descending and receiving tremendous blows.

At the nearby part of the complex entrance the snow is very slippery and the slope downwards, so it is very funny, we laughed and fell a lot. It is very curious to see people walking carefully and holding any near support, such as ropes or other persons.
Once inside you may have a cup in the restaurant, although it is expensive. The views are magnificent but we avoided it since we had brought our own food. You can imagine that there are thousands of souvenirs to buy at the tourist shop.
So we began our way back towards Lauterbrunnen.

The sudden appearance of the valley was fantastic , one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen, that you couldn't imagine even in dreams. It is a pity that the train doesn't stop to enjoy it fore longer.

In Lauterbrunnen we made a break to have lunch. The village keeps charming wooden houses and many flowers, but the most outstanding is the scenery . The village is in the middle of a sharp valley of vertical rock walls. A formidable nearby waterfall falls from the top of the walls. We suffered from hungry bees' attack that wanted our meal. We ended running and hiding all our food at the bottom of the rucksack.

We took a bus at the village that drove us in 5 min. to another magic spot, the Trummelbach waterfalls . We entered a lift that carried us up through the inside of the mountain. From the top you start a descent across caves, passages and staircases, admiring astonished the spectacle of the succession of waterfalls that have dug the different caves.

These cascades come form the thaw of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. The 20.000 litres of water per second cause a deafening roar and the waterfalls acquire numerous shapes. You should bring a water jacket to avoid getting wet. The biggest cascades are located at the end of the visit. This superb nature contrasts with the weak stream that leaves the caves, it seems impossible that all this water and strength finishes like this.