Today was a very long day. I am so exhausted. Excuse my typos.

We started our morning in Thun. I was a bit sad to say goodbye to the hotel that had been our home for the past three days. We had our last breakfast there, checked out and were on the road by 9:30.

First stop, Grindelwald to catch the train to Kleine Scheidegg to Jungfraujoch.

Jungfraujoch is the highest railway in Europe so they continue to call it “The Top of Europe” even though you’re not actually on the highest peak in Europe.

We easily found parking in Grindelwald. Since we had 10 minutes before the next train I picked up a very tourist-y beanie for the journey since I knew it would be cold at the top of the mountain (around 17 degrees apparently). From Grindelwald we caught a train to Kleine Scheidegg, a 25 minute train ride. Since Kleine Scheidegg is the only place to catch the train to Jungfraujoch it was a bit of a mad house once we got off the train.

People were pushing and rushing to the next gate. Even though Jacob and I were clearly in front of this biker dude and his elderly mother they wiggled their way past us in the line. It was chaos. At one point a poor old woman completely wiped out and fell right on her face. I saw the whole thing and felt terrible for her. She was able to get up but…it didn’t sound good.

Jacob said he was worried I was going to start an international incident because I was getting so irritated with the line pushing and cutting.

From there we got on the train to the Jungfraujoch which takes 50 minutes. Again, the train was so full Jacob and I couldn’t sit together but were pretty close. I sat with a nice Japanese family that now lives in Frankfurt and chatted a bit with them.

After an hour of driving and 1.5 hours on a train we finally made it to the Jungfraujoch. A few observations, your brain and body feel funny at 11,000 feet. We have both managed 7,000 feet fine, but this is a whole new story. We both needed time to adjust and it was difficult with the hordes of people rushing off the train and every which way.

We found a quiet corner and rested for a bit until we felt more acclimated.

From there we wandered around a bit. Checked out the tunnels below the main viewing area, did some walking in the snow, took some pictures. We actually ended up walking a great distance in the snow trying to reach a view point. Unfortunately, after nearly dying walking that far the view was partially clouded over, so we found a bench and ate some snacks.

After that excursion we took an elevator to another viewpoint, grabbed some pictures and were about done with the cold and the snow.

We headed back but it was standing room only on the train back down. Jacob had a nice chat with a guy from United Arab Emirates who got lost with his girlfriend. They got caught up in the crowds and took the train all the way up, then boarded our train and started heading down thinking they were not to the top yet. Jacob helped them out by providing some instructions on how to get back up the mountain.

After another 1.5 hours we were back to our car in Grindelwald. We took a quick snack and photo break before heading off to our next destination of Zermatt.

Jungfraujoch was amazing, but our drive to Zermatt was absolutely incredible.

Our day was much longer than we thought it was going to be and we started to wonder if the train would still be running to Zermatt by the time we got there. Well, guess what, it was and we were the only people in this jumbo train station. It was really eerie to hear some weird updated pop version of the Rick Roll song in a completely deserted train station. It felt like the zombie apocalypse was upon us.

We had the train all to ourselves to Zermatt. Once we arrived we had to walk about a kilometer to our hotel. Even though it was only 9:15 p.m. it felt like after midnight because the streets were so deserted.

When we arrived to the hotel, even the reception was closed already and they just left my key out with a note.

We are in our room now, trying to warm up! Tomorrow we will see the Matterhorn then head to Innsbruck.

Goodnight!