The Jungfrau

The Jungfrau

The Jungfrau is the highest peak of the Jungfrau massif in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps overlooking Grindelwald. At an elevation of 4,158 meters (13,642 feet), it is surrounded by two other notable peaks, the Eiger and the Monch. The summit was first reached by the Meyer brothers from Aarau in 1811, but now it is much easier as the Jungfraubahn cog railway runs inside the mountain up to the Jungfraujoch railway station, which at a height of 3,454 meters (11,333 feet), is the highest in Europe.

The first step in the journey up to the peak is the Wengernalp railway (WAB), a rack-and-pinion railway that opened in 1893 that takes you to Lauterbrunnen at 784 meters (2,612 feet), where you change to a train heading for the Kleine Scheidegg station at an elevation of 2,029 meters (6,762 feet). From here you can view the Monch, the Eigerwand and the Jungfrau and change to the highest rack railway in Europe, the Jungfraubahn. Some 6.4 km (4 miles) of its 9.6 km (6 miles) journey is through a tunnel carved into the mountain. There are two brief stops - at Eigerwand 2,830 meters (9,400 feet) and Eismeer 3,110 meters (10,368 feet) - where you can view the sea of ice from windows in the rock. As you emerge into the dazzling sunlight, you reach the Jungfraujoch terminus.

There are a lot of activities in this high alpine wonderland, but be warned, the high altitude means that the air is thin and you may need to take things slowly. Fortunately, there is a lift to the famous Ice Palace (Eispalast), a series of caverns hewn from the slowest moving section of glacier on the mountains. Built 19 meters (65 feet) below the glacier's surface in 1934 by a Swiss guide and subsequently enlarged and added to by other artists, this is an icy-blue fairytale museum filled with life-sized replicas of everything you can imagine from vintage automobiles to local chaplains!

Back at the station, you can take another lift via the Sphinx Tunnel to the observation deck of the Sphinx Terraces at an elevation of 3,550 meters (11,647 feet). Nestled between the Monch and Jungfrau peaks, here you can see the Aletsch Glacier, a 23 km (14 miles) river of ice, the longest in Europe, as the ice slowly melts into the high Rhone River before flowing into Lake Geneva and eventually making its way to the Mediterranean.