Day 8: I'm on Top of the World!

Well, not really top of the world, but top of Europe. Called Jungfraujoch, it's said to be the highest tourist spot in all of Europe at around 2 miles above sea level. It's also cold as freak up there, at around -7 C. To get there, we need to
take a few trains up the mountain which takes about 2 hours total. Mind you, at this altitude, the air gets pretty thin, so it's easy to get light headed and short of breath. I guess when we see whole train loads of tourists coming down from the mountain all passed out in their seats, it's not a good sign.

At the top of the station, you can take an elevator to the top lookout point, where you have a 360 deg view of the entire valley and mountain range. But it's so cold, you need to go in every 3-4 minutes or so before freezing your tail off.

There is also a part of the complex called the Ice Palace, where everything is carved from ice, sort of like that hotel in that James Bond movie, Die Another Day...but without the terrible acting.

After about 2 hours of oxygen deprivation, we head back down the mountain, gratified to breathe normal air again. This time, we take the train to the other side of the valley to an area called Lauterbrunnen. I won't say much about this place, but the view is simply amazing.


We make it down to Interlaken, sort of base camp in the valley, and stop by a knife store to look at Swiss Army knives (I've never owned one, and I've heard they don't sell non-red ones outside of Switzerland). Look what Santa brought!