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March 2002

Jungfrau Region

David Aaronson
2005-09-27 20:09:48

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As charming as the cities and towns of Switzerland are, it is the Alps that provide the most memorable scenery and the most impressive region of the Alps we've seen is the Jungfrau. The Jungfrau area is a Y-shaped valley starting in the town of Interlaken. Along one branch of that Y is the town of Grindelwald (shown here) (1) which is where we based ourselves for four days.

The region is known particularly for three peaks - the Jungfrau (maiden), the Monch (monk) and the Eiger (Ogre). This is the view of the Eiger from our hotel balcony (2). Note that we did not pay the extra 10 Francs a night for a room with a 'good' view. Having seen Grindelwald, I'm not sure it's possible to have a room with a bad view.

Grindelwald consists mostly of two main streets along a ridge that contain most of the hotels and restaurants in town. The center of town features a lot of shops (that are nearly all closed by 6 every day) and a nice sports center which has ice-skating, curling, swimming and various other diversions. The restaurants in town are no more expensive than those elsewhere in Switzerland, although we found it fairly easy to eat on our own as well given the high quality cheese, meat, and chocolate (it's a major food group in Switzerland) stores. As mentioned earlier though, you need to do all your shopping before 6 PM.

The Jungfrau region is connected by a vast network of trains, cablecars, chair lifts, gondolas, buses, trams, and even a unique rotating gondola-like thing. Realistically you don't need a car at all, at least once you get to the area. There are three major ski areas separated logically by the Y valley. This view is looking towards the central plateau (between the branches of the Y). This plateau is known as Kleine Scheidegg and the central peak is the Lauberhorn (3). From there you can ski all the way back into Grindelwald, although the first day we chose an unfortunate ...