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Published: August 1st 2013
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Wow, what a day. We came here because this was one of the places I liked the best when we came to Europe when I was young and I wanted to bring the children here. It didn't disappoint. After breakfast in the large guesthouse dining room, where the girls enjoyed two types of Swiss hot chocolate, we set out for Lauterbrunnen. There were snow-capped mountains all around and a full and fast moving stream right beside the road. At Lauterbrunnen we parked in the parking station with no indication of what the price would be and headed for the station. We failed to work out the automatic ticket machine so went into the office and $800 later we had 6 return tickets to the top of Europe.
It was a beautiful sunny day and the train trip through Wengen to Kleiner Scheldig was spectacular. We had to change trains in Kleiner Scheldig and it was very chilly! After Kleiner Scheldig we had to go straight through the mountain until we reached Jungfraujoch, the Top of Europe! It was quite chilly, but that was probably because we only had shorts and t-shirts on! For the 100th anniversary of the train last
year they had created a "tour" that you could follow that took you to all the points of interest, so we set off (it was a little warmer inside). The views from the outdoor platform were spectacular and it was lovely in the sun. We then headed out onto the snow. Emily, Jemima and Erin bought day passes and mum and Raechel bought tickets for the zip-line. They all lined up for the zip-line while Mitchell, Dad and I found seats to watch. They all loved the ride. Mum, Dad, Mitchell and Raechel then headed off so that they could walk down from Kleiner Scheldig while the girls got fitted for snow-boarding. They all enjoyed it; Jemima picked it up pretty quickly and so did Erin, Emily was scared of going too fast so kept deliberately falling over. She ended up quite cold and wet. While they were boarding a big storm came over and there was thunder and the mountain was closed. I even saw a small avalanche while I was waiting for them. We were almost the last off the mountain.
We then wandered through the ice palace with its ice carvings, and where Jemima did a
specky fall, did some souvenir shopping (Swiss army knife, chocolates etc) and then lined up for the train. When the train came out of the tunnel it was raining, so we hoped the others had walked quickly or found shelter, we kept our eyes open but didn't see them. When we got back to Wengen, they were waiting on the platform.
Back in Lauterbrunnen we wandered down the main street and found a restaurant that served cheese fondue. After a lovely dinner with wine, bread, fondue and ice cream we headed back to the car trying to guess how much the parking would cost (everything else today had been expensive) for 9 hours only to be pleasantly surprised that it was 6 Swiss Francs. It was a great day, worth every cent.
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