The Top of Europe

Yesterday the Mullivans were joined by Peter for an epic trip into the Alps. We decided to do the whole trip in one day, so it was an intense one. We took a total of 8 different trains over the course of the day, beginning at 8:00 in the morning from Basel to Interlaken, which took about 2 hours. From there we transferred to much smaller trains that led us up the Jungfraujoch, a totally touristy but awesome journey to the highest railway station in the world. The first train led from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen (more on that town later), the next went to Kleine Scheidegg, and the final went right to the top. Here are some pictures from the journey up:

This is a shot from Kleine Scheidegg, where we transferred to the final train to the top.

From left to right: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. If you look closely in the dip between the Monch and the Jungfrau, you can see the building we went up to. This is a better close-up:

Most of the journey on the final train happens in this tunnel, which is kind of lame. But they stop the train twice at picturesque lookout points, which is great. This is the view from the first one:

And the second, with an underlit Patrick in front:

Here we are at the top!

The incredible views:

This is the view down towards Interlaken.

Mullivans on a glacier! Or in front of a glacier, or in some way near a glacier at least. It was difficult to tell where the glacier was exactly, but it's somewhere under all that snow.

At the top we were amused to find:

Apparently the Alps are hugely popular in India, especially this particular spot. We did not try the restaurant, but it looked like plenty of other people were enjoying it!

One of the attractions was this weird ice cave, which is supposedly carved out of a really slowly moving section of glacier. Most of it was really kitschy (i.e. carved penguins) but it was fun nonetheless, with plenty of tourist-friendly photo-ops:

We couldn't take a picture of me in that spot, since I am way too short! I did fit nicely in this spot, however:

On the way back down the mountain we decided to stop off in Lauterbrunnen for awhile, which is a really cute and tiny town in a deep valley:

We walked through town and climbed a path that led behind the waterfall.

On the way we saw some goats!

We also smelled the goats, unfortunately. We saw lots of goats yesterday, but not too many cows.

Patrick took advantage of the fields of wildflowers to do some frolicking:

We ended up down in Interlaken and walked along the main drag. It is a huge contrast from tiny Lauterbrunnen and relatively un-touristed Basel. Parts of the town are really pretty, like this big park with people flying above it:

Some parts are not so pretty:

Interlaken also features a conveniently located sex shop:

Now, this seems to imply that one would find another sex shop on the mountain, but as far as we could tell, this was not the case.

Despite weirdly commercialized Interlaken, the trip was incredible. We would love to go back and stay for a much longer period of time so we could explore the other mountains and hidden towns. Maybe one day? Or we might just run off and stay there and never go home...