Tuesday’s main mission was a day trip to the Jungfrau region, but first we had to go back to Thun to find some medicinal herbs.
A block from the Thun Bahnhof (train station) we found a shop with all kinds of hippy stuff in the window. They didn’t have what we wanted, but the place we were sent to was across two bridges and down a long street.
We found the place and asked for a duftsachen (“aroma sack”). The clerk smiled and brought us to a room in the back. They had a display of nearly a dozen varieties of flowers priced by the gram and packaged into bags that sold for 10 francs. This translates to less than a third of the American price for comparable product. (At least something in Switzerland was cheap.)
With our duftsachen in hand, we were ready to get high into the mountains. With about 45 minutes to kill before the next train to Interlaken, we went to explore Thun’s lakefront parks.
Along the way we got carried away photographing everything in sight in the picturesque city center. So we missed our train, and got to spend an extra hour exploring the scenic wonders of Thun. Unfortunately, that would be one less hour to spend hiking in the high country later in the day.
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- A view of the Thun skyline.
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- A row of birds stand watch at the peak of the roof over the Thun dam.
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- This boat takes passengers on lake cruises, and probably looks more striking from a distance.
When we got to Interlaken Ost, we passed a long stream of geezers heading for the narrow-gauge train destined for the Jungfrau region. That was when we dubbed this train “der giezerwagen.”
We bought our tickets (our rail passes gave us a discount, not full passage), which were essentially day passes. We took a big loop thru Grindelwald, up to nearly the 7,000-foot level at Kleine Scheidegg, and back down through Lauterbrunnen.
Between Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the gauge got narrower and we were on the famous cog railroad. These trains took us up grades that were steep enough to invoke the beginning of a roller-coaster ride.
There was no snow below about 10,000 feet (a level we did not reach), but we could see plenty of ways the train was designed for serious snow. Many segments of track were under long heavily-reinforced canopies which probably became tunnels through the snow.
As we rose above the tree line we saw plenty of ski lifts and lodges. Through our train window we gazed longingly at the hiking and biking trails that criss-crossed the mountains.
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- A large group of students waits for the train to pass on their way home from school.
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- A Swiss supermarket provided a place to bring batteries for recycling.
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- The narrow-gauge cog train brought us high into the Alps.
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- It was too late in the day for us to use any of the many hiking trails.
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- Rozie shoots photographs through the train window.
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- A rock on the horizon forms a silhouette against the colors of the twilight sky.
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- Shortly before arriving in Wengen, we waited at a siding for the train going the other direction to pass.
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- The Swiss town of Wengen.
If we hadn’t lost an hour in Thun, we could have easily hiked from one station to the next in that amount of time. But now we’d have to stay on the train if we wanted to see the scenery before dark. Such is the price we pay for being slackers.
Darkness fell as we reached the town of Wengen. We got off the train, took a walk around town and stopped to enjoy some of the duftsachen we’d acquired this morning. An hour later, we caught the next train and found our way back to Interlaken.