Not quite the Swiss Alps......

Ever since Astrid's first visit to the snow, while we were in Switzerland, we have vowed to take her back...... to the snow (Switzerland is also on the agenda, but that might be awhile away).  Here she is in Switzerland, enjoying her first taste of snow in October 2012 at Jungfraujoch, at a mere 3466m above sea level.

Last Winter, by the time we had a Fiji holiday and got through Astrid's birthday and all our other around the house jobs, Winter was over. Of course I was also pregnant with Soren, so a day trip to the snow wasn't high on the agenda.  Now it's Winter again and we still haven't gotten around to that snow trip.  Astrid would love a day at the snow, but Soren is too little to get much out of it, and it really does seem like a lot of effort to drag two small children up the NSW ski fields for a couple of hours play time in the snow.

The weather has been foul here the last week or so....... We have had lots of days where the apparent temperature really hasn't got above zero for most of the day, and it's been sleeting or snowing for part of the day. OK, the snow wasn't sticking but there have been snowflakes in the air.  Luckily for us (and our lazy parenting) it did actually snow at nearby Corin Forrest. It is only a 30-40 minute drive from our house, so a much more manageable (and cheaper) outing with 2 small kids. 

It snowed so much there on the Tuesday last week that they had to close the road.  We thought we'd try and get there later in the week to see the snow. Wednesday we were busy but Thursday seemed like the best option.  Wednesday turned out to be a slightly warmer day and some of the snow had melted but it looked like on Thursday morning that the road was open and there was at least some snow.

We packed up enough spare clothes, food and possessions to last us a week away, and headed out after breakfast.  Astrid was beyond excited about going to the 'snow.' We hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed with the fairly pathetic local snow. Luckily she couldn't remember too much about Switzerland!

Soren had a nice nap in the car as we drove, and Astrid was becoming increasingly distressed that she hadn't yet spied snow. About 200 metres from Corin Forrest we started seeing snow on the ground.  When we got there, there was at least some snow to be seen. Although it was obviously starting to melt!

As we got out of the car we verified it was snowy and very cold, but Astrid was keen to go and investigate. The staff had closed off access to the other side of the creek, where the majority of the snow was, and the snow play area was also closed.  Apparently the day before some kids had broken into the snow play area and ruined their base coat of snow. That and the slightly warmer temps meant that there wasn't much snow left where we could access.  Us and a several other families with young children were wandering around looking a little disappointed.
  

Undeterred Astrid had a play in what little snow there was and built a tiny snowman.  Soren enjoyed being rugged up and warm. He looked confused as to why he felt so warm and cosy but his face was freezing!

Just as we were thinking of heading off the staff looked a bit worried about all their potential visitors running away due to the lack of snow, they decided to open up access to the other side of the creek.  Yay, more snow.......

Astrid loved running, jumping and playing in the snow. she also thought making tiny snowballs and throwing them at me and the camera was the best fun ever.

Of course it quickly turned into having to sit in the snow....... thank goodness for waterproof ski pants!  Soren had his first stand in the snow, and looked like he desperately wanted to have a good crawl around in it. We didn't think that was a good idea though (mean parents)!

There were plenty of other small children around so we had a play and built more snowmen.  Other kids had come equipped with their own carrots and kindly donated some to us for use on snowmen.  The small patch of snow eventually become littered with small snowmen, built by various small children (and parents).

Astrid was obviously getting a bit hungry and decided to eat the snow...... at this point we thought we had been cold for long enough and headed into the cafe to warm up and have a hot drink. The warm fire and hot chocolate made Astrid a happy girl. Soren looked on in envy and made to with demolishing several biscuits (since under no circumstances was he going to drink his bottle).

 

It was now lunch time and miserably cold and windy. Despite that, we had to drag Astrid away from the snow, with the promise of another snow visit in the future.  Next time we might even manage some tobogganing, and hopefully slightly more snow!

Both kids managed to nap all the way home and we declared it a successful outing. It wasn't quite the Swiss Alps, but it was quick, easy and fun, so a pretty good day out for two young kidlets.

25 October - Our trip through the Swiss Alps and up to Jungfrau Joch, the highest railway station in Europe

Interlaken
The verdict on the Interlaken hotel is that the location is fantastic for being directly opposite the train station, and annoying for being right opposite the train station. The tour groups were actually louder than the trains but they left early.  The two single beds pushed together with wooden panels down the middle were more of a problem.
Astrid woke up before 7 so we headed upstairs for breakfast. Not as good as the the day before in Montreux but we still managed to eat many types of bread product, meat and cheese. We packed our stuff for the day, including warm clothes and headed to the train station.

The Jungfau Trip
We had to catch the train from Interlaken West where were were to Interlaken Ost (East). We of course missed the first train and had to wait half an hour. Once 5 mins down the track at Interlaken Ost, we also missed a train trying to find the right platform and had another half hour wait. The Swiss are great at not labelling or explaining things. We have had trouble with train connections all through Switzerland because they don't usually put the same end point on the timetables as what is listed on your ticket, you are supposed to just know where all the station changes are and then it's easy to figure out. Until then it's pretty much impossible and we keep having to ask. The Jungfrau trip was again the same. It was sold as a single ticket but involved at least 4 train/station changes and there were multiple different ways to go, through different towns. Once you sorted this out it wasn't hard, but until then it was all a mystery.

We decided to head up through the Grindelwald route as it's supposed to be a nice town.  Interlaken is right at the base of some impressive mountains so straight out of Interlaken the scenery was fairly impressive. The first section of the trip was about 40 mins and we climbed from 500m at Interlaken to 1034m at Grindelwald. We did have one stop at Zweillutschinen (forever known as the town that we hook and un-hook at, since we can't pronounce it) where trains were unhooked to go different directions. then onto Grindelwald.

 Grindelwald is full of chocolate box houses and backed by sheer cliffs which were covered in ice and snow. It was pretty impressive. We decided to stop here and let Astrid have a leg stretch and a play. We wandered the shops while waiting for the next train and she had a fun play at a park with some pretty nice views.

The next leg was to Kleine Scheidegg and involved 30% gradients as we climbed to 2061m. We were now surrounded by snowy cliffs and steep valleys. The train moved pretty slowly and it took 33 mins to get to Kleine Scheidegg. We passed through lots of stations that operate as ski run points during the season. They are a few weeks from the ski season starting and most places are deserted except for the tourists going up the Jungfrau and lots of walkers out doing the scenic trails.

We changed trains at Kleine Scheidegg and we didn't have a break here as it was pretty busy with trains coming in thick and fast and we wanted to get up to Jungfrau Joch for lunch.  The next section of train was almost entirely in tunnels, so not too much to see except at the viewing stations from within the tunnel. Eigerwand (2865m) and Eismeer (3160m) stations which had glass platforms for viewing and allowed the downward trains to past while you got some good shots.

It was during this section of the trip that Astrid lost the plot. She was really tired and got a bit hysterical but Anto finally got her to sleep with several million verses of 'soft kitty' so she at least got some rest.

We finally got to Jungfrau Joch (3454m) and it was indeed cold and very high. We headed into the restaurant building with about a million other tourists. It was right on 1pm and a bad time to be arriving. We decided to give the bistro a miss as it was packed and went up the restaurant. It was expected to be expensive but turned out to not be any more so than any other Swiss meal and was really nice food. The views were spectacular over the Jungfrau and were lovely to watch while we ate. I had a leek soup with a ricotta ravioli through it and some cheese, it sounds weird but was lovely. Anto had a meat and cheese platter that was really good. Astrid had a bit of everything and a tonne of bread and butter and most of our hot chocolate.

During lunch we realised we were feeling a bit sick and lightheaded from the altitude. Astrid didn't seem bothered but Anto felt quite blah.  We suited up and wandered through the long, dark and cold tunnels out onto the snow face.  There wasn't a huge area you were allowed to play in but Astrid loved the snow and thought it was the best fun ever to lay in it, roll in it and touch it. She kept taking her mittens off and realising it was cold and not knowing why. We think a trip to the snow might be in order for next winter! Incidentally it was about 1 degree while we were up there so not actually that cold, at least not compared to a Canberra winter. We didn't even put half our warm clothes on.

As it was quite bright and cold and we didn't want Astrid running around too much in the altitude we took some photos and went back in for the next train down. It's at least 2.5 hours back so it had already been a long day.  The trains back were busy and we headed down to Kleine Scheidegg much quicker than we went up.  We decided to change here to a train to Lauterbrunnen and go back through some different towns. This was another packed train. Luckily the Japanese tourists that were stuck with us thought Astrid was hilarious and spent most of the hour long ride posing for photos with her and picking up all the things she was throwing at them.  We were grateful they were so good humoured about it. They still wanted photos when we got off the train, and took video, so she is probably on all of their facebook pages by now!

Lauterbrunnen is another beautiful ski town and if we weren't so tired and wanting to get back to the hotel we wouldn't have minded exploring.  You could spend days wandering through all the towns and walking some of the trails. It's a shame we only had one day. There were plenty of towns we didn't get to see at all.

We finally got back to Interlaken at about 5.30 after another 2 shortish train rides. Astrid was over it by this stage so we took her back to the hotel room for a break while Anto went and fetched some supplies. She managed to fall asleep on the bed and it was a shame to wake her for dinner. We had planned on some Cheese fondue but everyone else obviously had the same idea as the place we had wanted to go to couldn't fit us in until 8.30. Thinking that wasn't a good idea we got some Indian instead and got Astrid off to sleep after her big day of trains and snow!