Jungfraujoch

Today's optional extra was to head up to the "Top of Europe" - Jangfrau Mountain. We had breakfast at 8.15am, then headed to the reception area to meet Tamara and walk to the station at around 9am. I headed over a little early so I could grab some supplies at the shop. I bought the token Switzerland beanie, and some snacks as we'd been told food would be expensive up on the mountain.
Tamara gave us our tickets and we made the 10 minute walk through the town to the train station. We jumped on the Jangfrau Railways train and began our journey. This is Europe's highest altitude railway, and was constructed from 1896 and opened in August 1912. It cost 16 million francs to build, about $21.5mil AUD, apparently twice as much as originally estimated.
It takes around 2 hours to make it to the top, so they include a couple of toilet stops and viewing platforms along the way.
Once we reached the top, we had a completely free day, so I wandered off with the group in search of the snowboarding/skiing area. We were all amazed by the views and all of the snow, after being so warm everywhere else. It really was something else. Most people paid for ski and snowboard hire, while I opted to save my money and observe, becoming the unofficial photographer and videographer. I was in tears of laughter and my cheeks were hurting watching everyone struggle and fall (they were all laughing too!) Nat, in particular, had some truly epic tumbles, flying down the mountain on her snowboard at high speed and using the fence to stop... Had the fence not been there, we may have lost her to Jangfrau!!
We spent about an hour and a half there, before a few of us decided to head in search of the Lindt cafe. Turns out that was a failed mission, as there in only a Lindt shop, not a cafe, so we instead headed to a small cafeteria instead. Ashleigh and I shared a bowl of chips with mayo and tomato sauce. Expensive - just like we were told it would be - but delish and fresh, so it was ok.
We split up after that, and I spent the afternoon with Ashleigh and Jessame. They wanted to have a look at a couple of the souvenir shops, one of which was upstairs. I was feeling just a little odd from the high altitude - walking up the stairs was more taxing than normal, so I stood and rested by the shop entrance while they browsed.
Once they were done we headed back downstairs to do the Jangfrau tour. This was a self-guided tour, and took about an hour. First stop was the Sphinx view point. Just wow. If we thought the views were good earlier... We took plenty of selfies and just stood and admired the views. It was all so incredible!!
Next was Alpine Sensation, a sort of museum area, which was opened on the centenary of Jangfrau Railway, with lots of photos of the construction, a memorial to the workers who died during the process, and even a giant snow dome!
From there we entered the Ice Palace, a series of rooms full of ice sculptures. This was really cool, and you could even find the acorn obsessed Scrat from Ice Age, stuck in the ice. Last stop was the plateau, another viewing area out in the snow. We took our last lot of selfies before we headed back towards the station to make our way back down the mountain.
I was completely exhausted so napped most of the way back down, thankfully there was a few of us on the train to remind me to wake up and get off!
We walked back to our hostel, and had about half an hour before another included dinner. At dinner it became apparent that we'd all failed to heed Tamara's warnings about needing sunscreen dispite the cold - everyone was looking a tad red. This did work out well, as we were having a Swiss Disco in the bomb shelter bar at the hostel with a couple of the other contiki groups, and theme was Red and White!
A big group of us decided it was too early to head into the bar, so we sat outside to enjoy the sunset with a couple of drinks. I had some Jack Daniels to finish that I'd bought all the way back in Amsterdam, so it was perfect! I think it was starting to hit us that the tour was nearly over, so there was a lot of love and laughter in the group.
We took some group photos, and once the sun had set, we headed to the bomb shelter bar to party up a storm, and show the other contiki groups how it's done. That we did, Tamara even got them to put on our day song, Follow the Sun. We stayed down there until they kicked us out, I'd say it was around 1 or 2am, then I had a bit of a drunken chat with Jacinda and Terryanne (they were sober and had been asleep!) and then headed back to my room to sleep!Les mer