June 8th-
We woke up bright and early to the sun rising at 5 am. Luckily the jet lag helped us to wake up. We walked out the hotel to the train station next door to pick up our tickets to the top of Europe, the Jungfrau. We ran back in to eat our delicious continental breakfast. The breakfasts on our trip were the best part of the day! The oats, grains, cheese, meats, yogurts, sausage, bacon, eggs, breads, pastries, and croissants were so good! We looked forward to breakfast every morning. We ate hurriedly and rushed off to catch our train up the mountain.
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| We quickly found our warm June weather disappearing into glacier ice and snow capped mountains. |
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| Occasionally the climb was so steep that Dason and Justin could appear to be in a "Superman" pose due to the gravity pull on the train. |
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| At one point we could get off and look at a valley on the mountain through one of the tunnel holes. We had a brief moment to jump off the train and take a picture of the deepening snow. |
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| Once at the top, we were encouraged to take a moment and just breath deeply to help adjust to the altitude. These tunnels led through out the top of the mount to different museum type places. |
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| The first area we explored was full of wood carvings. Notice the Edelweiss everywhere. |
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| This snow globe was the size of a person in height and the miniatures were all carved from wood. |
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| In this room, the lights changed color as we looked at the sculptures. We headed deeper in the mountain toward the ice caves. |
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| We were surrounded by ice. The only thing not ice besides us, was the railing. |
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| "Bird" |
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| Inside the glacier |
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| We made it to the top. Surprisingly it was much warmer outside then in. The sky cleared just enough for pictures |
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| Yes, they even sold schokolade on the top of Europe. They also had a restraunt and lots of souviouners. |
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| We decided to stop about halfway back down to Grindewald and eat lunch. |
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| Jeanette loved the organization of their wood piles. Everywhere the wood was perfectly stacked like it is here. |
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| Down in the distance is Gridewald. Some of us decided to hike back to the hotel. The sign said 4 hours. |
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| Dayson wondered off again. |
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| The hike down was beautiful! Water fall run offs and avalanches were common sights. |
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| The fields were in full bloom with beautiful flowers. |
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| Glacier gray water. Called that because it is the same color as the rock. |
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| Tiffany was so excited about the cows. We could hear the bells long before we found them. |
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| This one must have been a very important cow as it's bell was much fancier than any of the other cows. |
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| Shan wanted to get the hands on experience with the animals. |
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| We hiked past that water fall on our way down. This is when we realized we had hiked about the distance of the back of Timp, 7 miles. Our knees were sore and we were tired! |
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| We loved Gridewald, but it was time to move on. After ice cream with gooseberries and a GOOD night sleep we woke the next morning early to head on into Fussen. This was one of the beautiful towns we passed as we left the beautiful lake country of the Swiss Alps and headed to Germany! |
