Day 3 - Montreux to Interlaken

Rude.

Alarm went off at 6:55am. I opened my tired eyes taking some time to figure out where I was and what hurt. Then I saw the view from my bed.

What a way to wake up. The early start is due to an early train as we head off on the next leg of this adventure. In truth we could have stayed here for a few days. It’s so nice just looking at the lake. I could imagine me with my book and a chair and just breathing the fresh air. Last night I dipped my toes into the lake. Cold but not unbearable.

We ate breakfast in the hotel (included) pastries, eggs and toast and incredibly weak coffee. Back to the room and packed up and we are off again. A walk by the lake-side again and chose a cafe that did real coffee before boarding the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken Ost. This is a beautiful panoramic train. Unfortunately we couldn’t get seats together when we booked, but are either side of an aisle and facing forward. Andrew sat next to a very nice American couple that are doing one hell of a train journey through France and Switzerland. Americans are always good value and interesting to chat with.

We set off at a slow 35km/ph and wound our way around the lake climbing higher and higher into the green hills.

Although the train is an express, it’s not fast and it does stop at a few places. Moboven (where you change for Gruyère), Gstaad (famous for skiing), Schonried, Saanenm and Zweisimmen. We had to change at Zweisimmen as the track changes from narrow (to get up the mountains we’ve just left behind) to standard track gauge. The train is supposed to lift up, the wheels move out and then we carry on. However, although the Swiss are the first to develop this ‘engineering miracle’ it has stopped working so we had to slum it on a regional train for the last leg of the journey to Interlaken. Actually no slumming involved since a) the trains are phenomenally clean and spacious and b) we have a first class pass.

We have bought a three day Swiss Pass ticket which gives us unlimited first class travel on all trains, buses, trams and boats around Switzerland. Although we weren’t able to get into First on the Golden Pass railway, the switch to this regional train means a nice first class carriage for the rest of this morning’s journey.

We passed Lake Thun as we arrived at Interlaken OST station. It’s a warm sunny day again.

We found left luggage lockers and ran for our next train. Part of the Jungfrau region, we were on our way to Grindelwald.

At Grindlewald Terminal we headed to the Jungfraujoch ticket queue. A rather grumpy fella sold us some tickets and we got some lunch. I had a lentil salad and Andrew noodles. We boarded the high speed gondola up to Eigergletscher (2,320m). We’d normally be wearing ski boots, but not today! The views are wonderful. No snow. Just green as far as you could see. There are some snow capped mountains in the distance. We had the gondola to ourselves so were able to walk around and take some pictures. We passed the north face of the Eiger - hard to believe that people could climb it.

At the top of the gondola we needed to get our 4th train of the day. The Jungfraubahn.

This train is part of a mountain rack railway. I’m no expert on trains, so had to look this up. It’s powered by electricity, and when it travels downhill it stores the electricity to power it up again. The “rack” part is that there are large teeth that run between the track and lock in like cogs to the underside of the carriage, so that the train doesn’t just run downhill.

The train really does drag you up - if you are facing downhill you do have to stop yourself from falling into the lap of the passenger opposite.

Within 20 minutes we were at the top. The Top of Europe (at 3,500 metres) Jungfraujioch is the highest accessible point in Europe so promised some breathtaking views. When you leave the train you follow the signs to the “tour”. It’s a self guided route and was actually very good. An immersive theatre area that made you feel as if you were a bird soaring around the mountain tops and an ice palace. The ice palace was actually a series of corridors carved out of the ice that you walked through and there were various ice sculptures to marvel at. The floor was also made of ice, so made for an interesting walk. We were hugely underdressed for this. We hadn’t really felt that there was enough time to visit this as the trains to it, plus the time there and back, takes around 5 hours so we weren’t convinced we would be able to make it. It was very much a decide on the day thing. Andrew was wearing suede shoes, chinos, a summer shirt and blazer, and I had a strapped dress, sandals and blazer. I even had my sun hat! We got some very strange looks from everyone else, all wearing ski gear or pac-a-macs!

The last part we visited was the Sphinx observatory. It is named after the rock on which it is located. It is the highest permanently manned observatory in the world. You can walk outside or stay inside. I mean, who stays inside? We stepped out and despite it being -1C it was actually very pleasant. Sunglasses on and we stared at the breathtaking views - they are breathtaking because of the views but also because it’s so high and literally quite a struggle to breathe.

We had a ticket for a slightly different train down. This one takes you from the very top to Grindelwald. It’s the same rack style train and this traverses the side of the mountains under the cable car. Beautiful scenery - farms with cows, lots of green fields (half expected to see Julie Andrews running along) and warming up with each metre it descends. Then we swapped to a regular regional train to take us back to Interlaken and our luggage.

We walked through Interlaken for 5 minutes before finding our hotel. Imaginatively called ”The Hotel Interlaken”. it feels very much like a ski resort here. Pretty with quite a lot of designer shops.

We have the ‘tiny room’, which is not tiny and has a pretty balcony overlooking the main street. We opted for an Italian meal tonight (despite being in the German speaking area of Switzerland). I had gnocchi with tomato and mozzarella and Andrew had the Romana Vacanze pizza. Despite a lot of sitting on trains, it has been quite a tiring day - bu we’ve had such a good time. We went for a little walk after dinner and Interlaken seemed to have gone to sleep. We found two pretty churches next to each other - not something you often see - one Roman Catholic and one Protestant.

Today we have been on seven trains. All punctual, all clean and all with cracking views.

Night night

ps the road we are in is called Schlossstrasse. Not often you see that many ‘s’ in one word is it?