Interlaken   It’s maybe a little over a half hour from Meiringen to Interlaken. As the name implies, Interlaken lies between two lakes. On the map, the lakes look like wings on either side of the town. Coming west from Meiringen, you go along the Brienzer See, passing Brienz. Beyond Interlaken to the west, routes go through Thun (TOON) on the Thuner See. I remember reading that historically, the two lakes were one, and it was silt over time that collected in the center of this prehistoric lake and eventually divided it into the present two. It’s the silted area where Interlaken is today.

I have a long history with Interlaken. In my first European trip in 1957 with a friend, we stopped in Interlaken for maybe a week as a “vacation” in the middle of traveling. I’m not a vacationer, and we found little to do to our liking, but one thing I remember was our bike trip. Bikes are common, and easy to rent, and taking one on the train is so common that train schedules point out whether they have availability for bikes. Anyway, we took our bikes on the train up to Grindelwald in the mountains (see below), then rode back to Interlaken, or, more accurately, we rolled back to Interlaken. Beverly and I also visited Interlaken some years ago.

The name, though, always bothered me. If it lies between two Seen (a Germanic word), why is it Interlaken (part of a Latinate word)? I checked, and now I know that there had been a monastery here in the 12C, which was given a clerical name in Latin, which transferred to the town, and stuck.

Interlaken has two stations. Interlaken Ost (East), where I arrived from Meiringen, is the main station, but is on the quieter east side of town. Interlaken West has more local commerce around it. The two stations are connected by a long street called Höheweg, along which there are numerous old grande-dame hotels, many dating from the Belle Époque era and earlier. Again, tourists, many British, have been coming here for a long time. The hotel I stayed was a brightly refurbished centenarian, and across the street, the Hotel Interlaken had a plaque on it saying that Lord Byron had stayed there in 1816, and Mendelssohn in 1832.

Interlaken is nice enough, but perhaps I’ve been here too often, and perhaps it’s just too oriented toward vacationers. I don’t remember before that it was such a sports center, especially for paragliding, but I also saw signs for hanggliding, rafting, and skydiving. This is not what I do, or what I came to Switzerland for.

I also remember how nice the Kursaal used to be, near the west end of Höheweg. A Kursaal, literally “Cure-Hall”, in an actual spa is where you go to “drink the waters” and “take the cure” that the waters purport to provide. But Interlaken is not a spa, and its Kursaal just has a garden, some grand meeting rooms, plus a casino. The garden at the Kursaal is still attractive, and still has the flower clock, a large, almost horizontal clock with metal hands and numbers, but otherwise a face of flowers. There are also flower clocks elsewhere in Switzerland. This trip I saw the one in Zürich, which had been planted with cactus.

It was the casino that was a disappointment. I remember a gentle place, which I just described when I was in Las Vegas last September (2007/16 “Gambling”). I mentioned then that one important game at the time was La Boule, based on roulette but more sedate. That’s all gone with the wind. On entering this time, after passing a sign saying “Poker--Texas Hold ‘em—Amerikanisches Roulette” I saw nothing beyond standard slot machines, blackjack tables, and the rest. America had won, and Switzerland had lost, to my way of thinking.

It’s the middle stretch of Höheweg that’s the best—still. The whole south side of the street for several blocks is a park, which allows an absolutely perfect view of the Jungfrau. Both nights I was there I went to a restaurant on the north side of the street with a view of the mountain across the park. I got to talking with the waiter and must have gotten along pretty well, since, as I paid my bill the first night, he came over with an unlabeled bottle and poured me a shot of what he at first described as “eine Überraschung (a surprise)”, but which he then said was their Haus-Schnaps. That was very nice of him.

Anyway, it’s the view that Interlaken is really all about. Remember there’s the trio of mountains Eiger-Mönch-Jungfrau, but you get to see from Interlaken just one, but the most famous one, the Jungfrau. I call the Interlaken view a diamond cutout view. There are two nearby hills between which the rail and road go south to the mountains. These dark hills form the two bottom lines of the diamond. The Jungfrau itself is a rather squat peak, and that forms the top lines of the diamond. You see the white mountain framed by the dark hills for a great view. And my good weather continued and I saw the summit perfectly from town.

This clip from YouTube shows the diamond-shaped view of the Jungfrau from Interlaken. The weather that day was as clear as this. Fortunately, when I was there, there were no sports-types there at all, although this video has many. Die Jungfrau von Interlaken

Jungfrau   For most people, the main thing to do in Interlaken is Jungfrau-related, and that’s to take the train up to the Jungfraujoch, essentially taking a train up almost to the top of the mountain, which will require some explanation momentarily. But first, watch this car on YouTube driving south on the road (next to the rail line) from Interlaken between the low hills, and enjoy that diamond Jungfrau view again. Approaching the Jungfrau

EIGER-MÖNCH-JUNGFRAU It’s only after you pass those low foothills that you start to have chances to spot the three mountains lined up next to each other, which are actually three crests on a ridge, so let’s talk about them first.

To the left (east) is der Eiger. The origin of the name is obscure, and there are several explanations. The Eiger is best known for its extremely steep, spectacular Nordwand / North Face. [Note that Wand means “wall”, so what English calls a mountain’s “face”, German refers to as a wall.] The Eiger’s Nordwand is also known as the Eigerwand, probably because it’s the most spectacular Wand the Eiger has. The height of the Eiger is 3970 meters / 13,025 feet.

In the center of this ridge is der Mönch, which is the word for “monk”. At 4107 meters / 13,474 feet, it’s just slightly higher than the Eiger.

To the right is die Jungfrau at 4158 meters / 13,642 feet, in turn, slightly higher than the Mönch, so there’s a minor rise in elevation from left to right. Jungfrau (jung+Frau, which is young+woman) means “virgin”. I suppose it had never been climbed when it was named. Now, not only has it been climbed numerous times, first in 1811, but there’s even a railroad that approaches its summit. There’s a joke somewhere here about virginity, but I’m not going there.

“Joch”, pronounced YOKH, means “yoke”, and is related to that English word. Picture a yoke connecting two oxen. There are dips between the three summits, and these are referred to as “yokes”, also “saddles”. Personally, I’d have called them “shoulders” between the “heads” of the summits. Call them what you will, but just realize that they are lower points that connect the summits. So, in order, from left to right we have Eiger, Mönchsjoch, Mönch, Jungfraujoch, Jungfrau. The rail line does not go all the way to the Jungfrau (although the original builder had that in mind) , it goes just to the Jungfraujoch, whose height is 3471 meters / 11,388 feet, clearly lower than any of the summits.

A ridge of peaks like this is called a massif, and customarily, the name of the massif is also the name of the highest peak. Therefore Eiger-Mönch-Jungfrau are all part of the Jungfrau massif, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Jungfrau region is called the Berner Oberland, which suggests I should talk a little more about cantons. I have no intention of discussing all the Swiss cantons, but I will mention the ones I passed through, which included all of the larger and more famous ones. Starting with the arrival in Zürich, the trip passed through the canton of Zürich, the canton of Zug, and around the Vierwaldstättersee are of course the four forest cantons already discussed.

Starting with Meiringen, and including Interlaken and the Jungfrau region, I was in the canton of Bern, the second-largest in area. Starting from the capital city of Bern in its northern end, it runs down to the Alpine region in the Jungfrau area. This southern stretch of Bern, because of the mountains, is called the Berner Oberland in German, l’Oberland bernois in French, and l’Oberland Bernese in Italian. It is German-speaking, as was every canton so far visited, but I quote the other two languages to show that the word Oberland is not translated. Certainly this German word looks like “Over-land” and perhaps could be well translated as the Bernese Uplands, or, borrowing the term from Scotland, the Bernese Highlands. However, in English, too, it’s the Bernese Oberland.

This is from YouTube: Eiger-Mönch-Jungfrau All three summits and both yokes are clearly visible (my own ride on this day had some troublesome clouds at the tops). What should also strike you at the leftmost end is the sharp, abrupt, cut-away steepness of the Eiger Nordwand.

KLEINE SCHEIDEGG The train trip to the Jungfraujoch is exciting, unusual, and uncommonly scenic. The route was built starting in the 1890’s by three different narrow-gauge railroads, the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB), the Wengernalpbahn (WAB) and the actual Jungfraubahn (JB) itself. For convenience, the three can be referred to collectively in the plural as the Jungfraubahnen. They are managed together, but each keeps its own fief, so the entire trip on the three railroads involves two changes of train, down below at either Grindelwald or Lauterbrunnen, then up above at Kleine Scheidegg, where the actual Jungfraubahn leaves from. So the point is to get up to Kleine Scheidegg.

The Berner Oberland Bahn leaves Interlaken Ost and in minutes has passed the foothills and enters the Y junction of two valleys. To the left in a few more minutes you reach Grindelwald. The valley to the right gets you to Lauterbrunnen. Both are then further connected to Kleine Scheidegg, which is much higher up in between the two. You can take the round trip up and down on one side only, which I’ve done before, or up one way and down the other. I went up via Grindelwald, and since I had never been to Lauterbrunnen before, came back down that way later in the day.

The BOB is meter gauge, or 100 centimeters wide (39.4 inches). It is a mixed rack and adhesion route, which means its cog engages a rack in a couple of steeper spots, but mostly it’s a normal railway. (“Adhesion” simply refers to the fact that the friction of the regular wheels adhering to the regular tracks cause forward motion. All regular (non-cog) railroads are therefore adhesion.) The previous video seems to be the BOB going to Grindelwald. At the end, you might be able to see that this is one of its sections with a rack between the tracks, also indicated by a little bit more noise than otherwise. At the end of the day, I returned from Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost, on the other branch of the BOB.

Changing trains at the small Grindelwald station was easy, involving a wait of just a few minutes, and involved just crossing the platform. Grindelwald is a charming mountain town and resort, with a lot of old dark-wood chalet-type houses in the center, as usual, with geraniums. But most impressive in Grindelwald is the imposing Eiger Nordwand right above you.

The Wengernalpbahn is a cog or rack railway, also referred to as a rack-and-pinion railway, “pinion” referring to the gear, or cog. Uniquely, it’s more narrow-gauge then the other two and is less than a meter, the tracks being only 80 centimeters apart (31.5 inches). Its route goes from Grindelwald up to Kleine Scheidegg, then down the other side to Wengen and Lauterbrunnen. (Above Wengen is an Alp named Wengernalp, which gave the railroad its name, since originally, the railroad serviced only that area.) There is no scheduled service up one side and down the other, since just about everyone is heading up to Kleine Scheidegg and the Jungfraubahn.

Kleine Scheidegg is actually a mountain pass at 2061 meters / 6762 feet, rather high, but no Jungfrau. A small resort has grown up around it. Like “Kulm”, “Scheidegg” is another one of those German words that only appears in Switzerland. It means “watershed”, so the name is “Small Watershed”. There is also a Grosse Scheidegg nearby, which, as the name says, is larger.

Since Kleine Scheidegg is a major intersection, even though we still have to go up to the Jungfraujoch, back here, then down the other side, it’s worth taking a look at this YouTube entry showing the Alpenbahnhof / Alpine Station. [The wealth of videos on YouTube is amazing, as is the diversity of languages they’re in: English, German, Italian, French, Dutch, and Spanish being among the most common. Checking the entries on YouTube is a cultural adventure in itself, which I recommend.] Alpenbahnhof Kleine Scheidegg

DIE JUNGFRAUBAHN But everyone comes this far to take the Jungfraubahn to go still higher up. For this unique train we need a little background. By 1893 the Wengernalpbahn had already accessed Kleine Scheidegg, and a man named Adolf Guyer-Zeller had the idea of extending rail service into the Jungfrau massif by means of a tunnel through the massif, first through the Eiger, then the Mönch, and then actually into the Jungfrau itself, where a lift would then actually take visitors to the very summit of the Jungfrau. It never happened quite like that. Construction of such a tunnel at the altitudes in question involved difficulties and changes of plans. It also took a long time and construction, which had begun in 1898, wasn’t completed until 1912. The major difference was that construction, which did go through the Eiger, Mönchsjoch and Mönch to the Jungfraujoch, stopped there, so that the Jungfrau itself was never reached, and is instead viewed from the area of the Jungfraujoch. Therefore, although many climbers have climbed the Jungfrau, the railroad never quite made it, so at least in that one sense, the Jungfrau remained the “virgin” that its name implies.

It strikes me that Guyer-Zeller and several others who had preceded him, having had an “impossible” dream of building a railroad on a difficult route to a most unusual place, bears some similarity to Henry Flagler building his “Railroad that Went to Sea” along the Florida Keys to Key West. One difference is, though, that Flagler’s railroad is now a highway for automobiles while the Jungfraubahn is still going very strong.

The Jungfraubahn has a total length of 9.34 kilometers / 5.8 miles, of which 7+ kilometers / 4.4+ miles are within the tunnel, so 75% of its distance is underground. This gives one the feeling for most of the ride of being in a subway, but quite unusually, a mountaintop subway. The JB is a meter-gauge rack railway, since in this total distance the train has to climb 1400 meters / 4593 feet, or put another way, the train rises upward from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch 1.4 kilometers / 0.87 mile, with gradients of up to 25%. It takes 50 minutes to go up because of two stops it makes, but then just 35 minutes to come back down.

As we discuss the ride, we can describe the tunnel. The first distance is outside, to a stop at the Eigergletscher / Eiger Glacier, which was visible in the last video of the returning train. It then enters the tunnel. To gain altitude, it first turns left (east) under the Eiger. The route turns where you “run out” of Eiger, right at the Eiger Nordwand, but that’s also where the first stop is. It’s announced that you have five minutes to go see the view, which is a time of panicked pressure, because you leave your things on your seat, run the few steps to the view, and can also stop at the rest rooms, since there are none on the train, and hope you don’t miss it. But the view, looked at fleetingly, is worth it. There is a window in the rock about 8 meters by 1 meter / 24’ x 3’. As with the windows in the second stop, it had been built to remove rock during excavation, and also serves to ventilate the tunnel, but do realize that you are right in the Eiger Nordwand, looking down at Grindelwald below. Although I would have some cloud trouble at the top, the views at this window and the next were clear. The window here is also used to rescue climbers who are in trouble climbing the Nordwand.

The Eiger being as famous as it is, the names Nordwand and North Face are used in the commercial world. The main thing that comes to mind is the California company called “The North Face” that’s been making of a line of very popular outdoor clothing since 1968. I always assumed the name was based on the Eiger, but its Wikipedia entry says “the name was chosen because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is generally the most difficult face to climb”. I can accept that, since the north face would get the least sunshine and would be most prone to ice. However, I find it difficult to believe that the founders of that company didn’t have the Eiger North Face in mind in particular, because of its fame. In any case, I noted several people wearing North Face jackets on the train and at the stone window in the North Face, and I’m sure, and find it ironic, that very few, if any, had a clue of any potential connection.

As the tunnel swings right (westward) inside the Nordwand, the tunnel is on the far side of the massif, so the view out the window at the second stop, called Eismeer / “Ice-sea” or Sea of Ice, is in a new direction, south.

Finally, the train arrives at a widening of the tunnel at the Jungfraujoch. This is the highest railway station in Europe at 3454 meters / 11,332 feet. The complex there is promoted under the English term “Top of Europe”.

I grow impatient by commercialism where it shouldn’t be located. I understand that the Jungfraujoch complex is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site, surrounded by the larger WHS of the Jungfrau massif, and I feel that this should be a place to enjoy nature. However, one finds what is almost a shopping mall. The station is just a wider and higher area of the tunnel at its end, and as you walk through the rock you then find yourself in the complex proper. Everything here is either built in the rock or within a several-story building (with elevators) that projects from the rock, mostly on the same far side of the Joch as the Eismeer station did. Even though it was a weekday, people were shoulder to shoulder, many individual travelers, and many, many tour groups. It should surprise no one that there is a heavy Asian contingent coming her, principally Japanese. Do note that EVERY sign up here, in addition to the expected languages, is also in Japanese. There is a food court, a lot of shopping (especially prevalent are shops selling Swiss watches), two restaurants on different levels, and I hear there’s a hotel, although I didn’t see it. As far as all this intense commercialism goes at a natural site, “we are not pleased”.

There is a tunnel in the rock that leads to the Eispalast / Ice Palace, a large grotto of ice sculptures, which is cut out of a living glacier. There are also two rock tunnels leading to exits where you can walk in the snow some distance (or go hiking), but with the heavy wind and cold, that held no interest for me. What I did enjoy was the large lounge area with a view of the Aletsch Glacier, and later, the viewpoint called the Sphinx.

From the large windows in the lounge was a view downward. Although it was fog-covered, the fog lifted momentarily at least three times while I was there, permitting the view downward of the huge glacier flowing down the mountain. The Aletschgletscher is the largest glacier in the Alps and is also on the south side of the massif. It covers over 120 square kilometers / 45 square miles. The glacier drains into the Rhône River, in the valley “behind” the Jungfrau. Due to the effects of global warming the Aletschgletscher receded by 100 meters / 330 feet just between 2005 and 2006 alone.

Walking down a long tunnel in the rock you come to a large rock room with an elevator in the center that takes you up to the Sphinx. The Sphinx is a minor peak on the Jungfraujoch, and is the main viewing area. The elevator is the fastest in Switzerland. In only 25 seconds it takes you up 108 meters / 355 feet to the Sphinx-Panoramaterasse. That yields a maximum speed, halfway up, of 6.3 meters / 20 feet per second. This is the highest point one reaches, 3571 meters / 11,716 feet, higher than the Joch but not as high as the three peaks. The lower level of the terrace, unfortunately, includes a large area selling watches. It had about four clerks, which mean that a lot of people might enjoy buying watches at the top of the Sphinx rather than enjoying the mountains. They wouldn’t be selling ‘em if people didn’t buy ‘em.

There is a science station at the panoramic terrace, where it indicated an outside temperature of -7.1° C / 19° F. I stayed long enough that by the time I left, there was a heat wave up to -6.9° C / 20° F.

I’ve already indicated the cloud problem. The day before, and the day after, the view from Interlaken showed no clouds whatsoever at the summits. On my travel day, though, there remained a pesky cloud that just stayed at the summits. The views in Grindelwald and later were fine, as were the views from the stone windows. I even got to see the Aletsch Glacier. But the rest remained problematic. On my two earlier visits, I remember seeing nothing whatsoever, so I should be happy I did see something. I read that you can see the Aletsch from the terrace—that wasn’t the case, but I had seen it just before. I’m glad I brought my book along, because I spent about two hours at the Sphinx, waiting for the views, reading, and people watching. It was incredible to see how many people marched through on tours, saw nothing, and had to leave. That’s the regimentation I so heartily dislike about tours. Anyway, at one point when I was on the open area on the outside terrace, all of a sudden people started to move toward one side. It was great: the cloud lifted—only for maybe 25 seconds—and the view opened downward along the Mönch way down to Grindelwald, and even beyond the foothills to Interlaken. I suppose I had gotten used to “pressure viewing” looking out the stone windows, hoping I wouldn’t miss the train, and this was more of that—stare as hard as you can at the magnificent view before the cloud descended again—which it did.

I waited in the (heated) enclosed terrace inside, and was also rewarded. At least three different times, the moving cloud on the opposite side shifted just enough, and there it was! Die Jungfrau! The peak was just a little higher then where we were, and I did get to see it a few times.

Take a look at this YouTube view from the Sphinx. Note that this is a winter video, and I was there in July. Even so, with the low temperatures mentioned, there was still some little amount of snow around on the peaks, and part of the terrace was closed because of ice falling from the building. Also, the video is a continuous panorama, while what I saw was only intermittent. I’m glad I saw this video to fill in the blanks for myself. Jungfraujoch: View from the Sphinx

DER STAUBBACHFALL Coming down from the Jungfraujoch, the Jungfraubahn brought me back to Kleine Scheidegg, where I connected to the Wengernalpbahn to go down, not via Grindelwald as I had come up, but to Lauterbrunnen. This route was a bit more interesting, actually. We stopped in Wengen, an attractive resort where cars are not allowed. Everyone has to arrive via the WAB in one direction or another. The further descent to Lauterbrunnen was particularly steep, and on the rack. At the Lauterbrunnen station there was a longish wait for the Berner Oberland Bahn back to Interlaken Ost. But that’s not all, because there’s a lot to be said about serendipity. Usually, I know what there is to see, and choose accordingly. But sometimes you just come across something by chance …

Michelin mentioned in its Lauterbrunnen entry a certain Staubbach Falls and gave it a mere one star, but further noting that Lord Byron had mentioned it in a poem. I suspect someone was asleep at the switch with that low award. I was fascinated by this waterfall, and it’s just the thing that now would bring me back to Lauterbrunnen. Hooray for serendipity.

Many local waterfalls, not being Niagara or Victoria Falls, are usually a dime a dozen, pleasant roadside affairs worth just a passing glance. Even Reichenbach Falls, taking away its Holmes association, is a waterfall with only the top visible from Meiringen, being hidden away in a niche in the mountain, and nice enough up close. But der Staubbachfall is different, and in many ways unique. Coming down from Wengen, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, and waiting at the station, its attraction was hypnotic.

Obviously, it has great visibility. The Lauterbach Valley is a classic U-shaped valley caused by the movement of a long-gone glacier. Coming down from Wengen, on one steep side of the valley, the town and routes lie perpendicular. It’s the opposite wall of the valley that first draws interest. It is a solid rock cliff, 297 meters / 974 feet high. It’s no Eiger Nordwand, but is very impressive as a backdrop to Lauterbrunnen. As I arrived from Wengen, somewhat left of center I saw the very noticeable waterfall. Close as the rock wall is right behind the town, one wonders how close the waterfall comes to buildings. It’s right there, virtually in town! Actually, it’s not unusual to have a waterfall in a U-shaped valley, since a side glacier that used to flow into the main glacier in the valley is now a flow of water that falls into the valley instead.

Its height is the same as the cliff, since it cascades from the very top. It’s the second highest waterfall in Switzerland, the highest one being only 8 meters / 26 feet higher. So the wall impresses in its mass, the falls in its height, and both in their closeness, right behind town. But what’s so special? Well, this waterfall disappears as it falls. But then it reappears again. It’s amazing. Watching water is always interesting—and hypnotic, be it waves on a beach or Vic Falls going over the edge. But disappearing?

Many falls slide down a mountain, but this one runs off a lip on top of the cliff, and drops precipitously into a free-fall. The top third of the falling water is relatively solid, but then the middle third starts to disperse considerably. This is due to the wind, but, as later research on this phenomenon indicated to me, due to the rising thermals coming up out of the valley along the cliff face. Almost all of the solid flow comes apart into what looks like droplets of rain, even fog, which is how I saw it that day. I suppose in a wet season, a heavier flow would disperse less, and in a dry season, perhaps more. Varying degrees of wind would also affect the illusion that the falls has turned into rain. In any case, there has to be a high degree of evaporation in the way this water comes down.

By the lower third, the mountain has jutted out considerably, and the “rain” falls on solid rock, forming multiple rivulets—as a real heavy rain would—and these rivulets come together in a pitchfork pattern to reconstitute a solid flow of water. Hypnotic as any flow of water is, the Staubbachfall really does hold the eye.

The name is also of interest. This name has meaning, but its hard to express in another language. Of course, such a challenge is what it makes it interesting. “Staub” (SHTOWP) is the curious word, as it means “dust”, and now we move into the translator’s difficulty of different metaphors in different languages. Dust in English metaphors always involves dryness, such as in the simile “dry as dust”. But Staub in German can also imply moistness. For instance, the verb “stäuben” (SHTOI.ben) means “to throw off a spray”, whereby the “dust” particles are droplets of water. Something that is “verstäubt” (fer.SHTOIPT) is “dispersed” into fine particles, also “scattered”, “diffused”.

“Bach” (BAKH) means “brook” or “stream” under ordinary circumstances. So this kind of falls is a brook that disperses into “dust” or droplets. “Dustbrook Falls” isn’t a very good translation, although it’s the most literal. I’ve seen “Dust Cascade”, and below you’ll see someone famous calling the Staubbach the “Torrent of Dust”. I don’t agree with these translations, even if one is by someone famous. We have to leave “dust” out of this because it doesn’t work in English. I can come up with a couple: Dispersion Falls? Diffusion Falls? Here’s my very favorite: Scatterbrook Falls. Like the original, it tells what happens to the brook. But all that is just an academic exercise to understand what the name is saying (and to rise to a challenge). We’ll still call it Staubbach Falls.

[Although I’m not a sports fan, I’m aware of the football player Roger Staubach, whose family name reflects this waterfall, although the spelling is shortened slightly.]

I’m sure literary people have written about many natural phenomena, such as fjords and mountains, but I’m particularly concerned in what people have said about Staubbach Falls. Michelin’s referred to Lord Byron using it in a poem. I found the poem more obscure than another Lord Byron reference I found, a prose one in his “Alpine Journal” of 1816, presumably at the same time that he stayed at that hotel in Interlaken. Lord Byron says the Staubbach is “like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind”. Now there’s a professional poet who knows his imagery.

I was on a roll with finding literary references online. In “On Approaching the Staubbach, Lauterbrunnen” dated 1820 and 1822, William Wordsworth waxed a bit more poetic: “This bold, this bright, this sky-born Waterfall!” I like his saying that it’s born in the sky.

Not too many years later, in 1836, James Fenimore Cooper described the Staubbach in “Excursions in Switzerland”. I’ve condensed it slightly, and I’m glad to see he saw pretty much what I saw: “We walked to the waterfall, which was the celebrated Staubbach (Torrent … of Dust)…. It … fell over the face of a stupendous rock, itself an imposing object…. About a third of the distance, the fluid descends toward the eye in a sort of thick spray; it then seems to be broken into falling mist, until it touches a projection in the mountain, where it … descends, washing the base of the rock … in a limpid current. It is well named; for so ethereal or dustlike is one of its sections that once or twice it appeared about to sail away like a cloud … on the wings of the wind.”

And finally, I always say a Goethe quote never hurts, especially when involving a German-speaking country. He was inspired by the Staubbach, and while there, wrote “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (Song of the Spirits over the Waters)”. There are six very short verses. I’ll just quote the last one, with my translation (this text translates very easily).

These writers were inspired by the height of the falls, describing it as being born in the sky, but primarily by the interplay of water and wind, both physically and symbolically.

We should take a look at YouTube, whose selection here is extensive, but mostly of poor quality. Let me first point out this one, a bit pure Kitsch named Der Klang der Alpen / The Sound of the Alps. It includes a lot of cow-bell ringing and park views, but in the middle of the clip is the best view of the falls I’ve found, although short: Lauterbrunnen: Staubbachfall

Although I was just there passing through at the station (which had a great view), I see from this video that it’s possible to go up to the top and walk through a rock gallery behind and under the falls. I did not do this obviously, but will next time. Behind the Staubbachfall

Golden Pass Route   Let’s start with some givens. Given: the southern half of Switzerland is where the highest Alps are, so will probably be the most scenic. Given: any train route that passes through the southern half of Switzerland, including one entering Italy, will probably have a lot to see. Given: the Swiss know how to build trains, and run them; all equipment is up-to-date, and large-windowed Panoramawagen / panoramic cars are frequent. Given: the Swiss know how to coordinate their transportation connections between rail, bus, ships, and other. Now, with all those givens, it will not surprise that the Swiss try to market several alpine rail routes particularly as tourist attractions. There are four of these. I rode all four, three of which were new to me. Two of these rail routes are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The one I rank fourth really needs a lot of work, although they try. The one I rank third is really quite nice; it’s marketed as the Golden Pass Route, and it’s the next thing I did. [Note how the Travel Cynic speaketh again, not saying that it IS that, but that’s it’s marketed under that name.]

Only part of what they’re trying to market as the Golden Pass Route is really special, but it’s makes the whole trip worthwhile. It’s marketed as a route between Luzern and Montreux, but it’s over three private lines, with two changes of gauge, and of train. The first is the meter-gauge Zentralbahn from Luzern via Meiringen to Interlaken. As it happens, I was doing this anyway, and both segments were a pleasant and attractive ride, but not that special. Leaving Interlaken I was again on the Golden Pass Route, but the more special and attractive part, starting with the standard gauge trains of BLS, as far as Zweisimmen. There is no particular importance to Zweisimmen, it’s just as far east as the next company, meter-gauge again, had built its line from Montreux on Lac Léman / Lake of Geneva. THIS is the special ride. It’s the 62.4 kilometer / 38.8 mile route of the (Compagnie du Chemin de fer) Montreux-Oberland bernois (MOB).

I had worked with MOB’s website, and knew what it had to offer. You can get seat reservations on the Golden Pass Route, but I only felt the MOB was worth the bother. Not only do they have spectacular panorama cars, they have a set front-row seats (actually two rows), eight seats in total, where I wanted to sit. When I had been on the phone with Rail Europe ordering my Swiss Pass and a set of reservations, they said they could only get me the regular panoramic seats on the MOB. If I wanted the special seats I’d have to do it once I was in Switzerland. Well, that’s all I’d need—one more chore to do on the trip instead of earlier, but more important, the good seats would probably be sold out. Not to worry. I simply went to the MOB website, and for 15 Swiss francs I ordered exactly the seat I wanted online, paid via credit card, and printed out my reservation. As I said in Cape Town at Robben Island, never take no for an answer.

The train change in Zweisimmen was simple, right across the platform. There were two Panoramawagen, in the front. I didn’t have to look at numbers of coaches. I simply went to the first coach, and to the front row of seats.

The special seating the MOB offers has the driver’s view. You sit in FRONT of the train driver. On entering this front coach, you pass the regular rows of panorama seats and come to a room on the right taking about 2/3 of the width of the coach. This is where the train driver sits, but up high, looking out through a bubble dome. You walk to the left of this room, and in front of it are the two special rows, each with 1 + 3 seating, for a total of eight seats (the second row is raised as stadium seating). I had booked myself the single seat in the front row. The side windows came down from the ceiling to your shoulder, but the front window came was ceiling to knee. I’d never seen such spectacular train seating before.

A comment on names. One the website, these seats were referred to in English as VIP Seats, and in German, which likes to use English terminology, as VIP-Plätze. I don’t like those terms. I didn’t see any Very Important People sitting there, including myself. What I did like was the French name on the website: Places à Grande Vue. What a wonderful, and accurate way to put it: Grand View Seating.

And a grand view it was. How often do you get to sit upfront on most forms of transportation? Even in private cars, there’s the hood area you have to look over. I suppose buses, both city buses and tour buses, are the only thing similar, with the driver (and any one near him) having a spectacular view of the road up ahead. Well, on the MOB with Grande Vue, that’s what I had. The 1 ¼-hour route is largely rural, and the view was marvelous. After a while, we stopped in the famous resort town of Gstaad, which is nicely situated. Shortly after Gstaad came a town named Saanen, then Rougement, then Château d’Oex. Did you notice something? Still within Switzerland, we went across a language border, from German to French, as indicated by the town names. Actually, in this case, we also crossed a cantonal border, from German-speaking Bern to French-speaking Vaud (VOH), which we stayed in all the way to Montreux, except for crossing a tiny piece of Fribourg. Vaud is the fourth-largest of the Swiss cantons in area.

Before finishing the MOB trip, let’s expand on this crossing of the language border. Of the 26 cantons, most are officially monolingual, three are officially bilingual, and one trilingual.

German-speaking Switzerland is called die Deutschschweiz. By far, most monolingual cantons have German as their sole official language. French-speaking Switzerland in the west is called by the curious and rather unique name la Suisse romande (NOT française!). I’ll refer here to the rather well-known Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR). Only four cantons in the west have French as their sole official language.

The languages in all three bilingual cantons are German and French. The canton of Bern (spelled in French Berne) that the train was just leaving, is mostly German but has a 4% French-speaking minority. The canton of Fribourg (in German, Freiburg) that the train just crossed a bit of, is French, but with a very sizeable 1/3 German minority. And later in the afternoon, I’d be in Valais (the French name sounds just like “valet”), also with close to a 1/3 German-speaking minority, who call it Wallis (VA.lis).

Italian-speaking Switzerland is la Svizzera italiana (ZVIT.se.ra). Its first university, which opened in 1996 primarily in Lugano, is l’Università della Svizzera italiana. La Svizzera italiana is located in the only monolingual canton with Italian as its language, Ticino, but also partially in the trilingual canton, to be discussed later, so the Swiss Italian region is the only one that is not contiguous.

So, die Deutschschweiz gave way to la Suisse romande on the way to Montreux (maw[ng].TRÖ), and the last 15 minutes of the ride was the best part, which is why I’d want to do it in this direction. We reached the point where the highlands dropped away down to Montreux on Lac Léman / Lake of Geneva, and the view was spectacular. It was like looking at the lake from a plane, but upside down, since we were coming from the north. On the right (west) you could not see as far as Geneva, or even Lausanne, but both ahead and to the left (east) you saw from the center to the east end of this large lake. You saw to the right much of the Swiss (north) shore, with Montreux at your feet. You could clearly see on your left where the Rhône entered the lake from the Rhône Valley (it flows out on the other end at Geneva, then into France), and on the opposite (south) side, as you looked left to right, the Swiss shore became the French shore and you were looking into the next country. The train zigzagged left and right through vineyards, making suburban stops on its way down to Montreux. What a beautiful descent.

Changing trains in Montreux, that was the end of the Golden Pass Route, and I took the train going east up the Rhône Valley. Five minutes past Montreux, many people are aware (and if you aren’t, they announce it in several languages) that you pass the Château de Chillon (shi.YAW[NG]), made famous by Lord Byron (that name again) when he wrote his 1816 poem about the Prisoner of Chillon, who had been in an underground dungeon from 1532 to 1536. The castle is attractive, but what impresses is its location. It’s on an islet in the lake immediately off the shore, so that the water between the two amounts to hardly more than a moat. It’s easily visible, and this was the third time I’ve passed it, either by train or by car.

Going up the Rhône Valley we passed from Vaud to the Vallais (Wallis), the third-largest canton in area, but were still in la Suisse romande. This time, as we crossed the language border, we did not also cross a cantonal border; also it wasn’t just the change of town names from French to German, it was one in particular: Sierre/Siders lay right on the language line and its name was posted in both languages, so we now reentered die Deutschschweiz, while still in Wallis (Valais).

Zermatt   My stop was Visp (FIShP) to connect to Zermatt, but trains continued straight ahead a short distance to Brig, where they either would turn southeast to cross through the Simplon Tunnel to Italy, or otherwise do what I’d be doing in a few days, continuing northeast up the valley behind the Jungfrau, where the Aletsch Glacier sends its flow down to help feed the Rhône, then over through Andermatt and the Oberalppass to eastern Switzerland. But now it was a change at Visp to another meter-gauge railway, the Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn (MGB), that would bring me up to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. It was a mixed adhesion and rack railway, and as we went up along the Vispa river, you could hear the cog engaging, then disengaging. From Visp to Zermatt and the Matterhorn, you go rather directly south. As in Wengen earlier, Zermatt is car-free, so cars are left in the previous town, and people then take the train the last stop.

I must say I now have developed very mixed feelings about Zermatt. I went there again to see the Matterhorn and other mountains, and I still like much of Zermatt, but the center of it I do not like at all. I recommend the visit with the caveat to beware.

The layout is easy to picture as long as you remember that the valley runs south from Visp, and continues through the long, narrow town of Zermatt. The train arrives running south to the station, which has the main street on its side, which then runs further south through the town, in the direction of the Matterhorn. From the moment of my arrival, I felt uneasy. The MGB Station faces the Gornergrat Station right across the main street, where trains go up into the mountains. Both stations gave an unattractive grey concrete appearance. Crossing the street in the supposedly pedestrian town, one is almost bowled over by 15-25 electric golf carts that serve as taxis or hotel vans that one has to try to avoid. Looking further south from that point I immediately sensed the tourist kitsch looming ahead.

The travel gods must have been looking down on me months earlier when I found the website for the Schlosshotel Tenne and made a reservation. It had seemed comfortable, and in actuality proved to be wonderful. The directions given on the website described walking north from the station (thank goodness—it turned out to be away from that tourist area) maybe 50 steps (but already the area seemed quieter), then, at a restaurant where I later got my fondue for one, to turn right through a stone arch to the hotel. When I got there and went through the arch, I found myself walking down a narrow lane surrounded by traditional Swiss wooden buildings, and in a few steps was my hotel, much of it also in wood—with the usual geraniums. The hotel was charming, I had a balcony with mountain view (but not towards the Matterhorn), and the lobby was cozy with free internet. There were surrounding gardens, and everything one would expect in a rural Swiss town.

There was one curiosity that I thought was quaint. The room keys were at the end of those large, clunker weights that help give charm to traditional hotels, but the Tenne had a twist. Instead of turning in those heavy keys at the desk when you stepped out (which is the purpose of having those heavy weights on them), there was a large set of cubbyholes on the lobby wall that looked like mailboxes. You left your large key in the cubbyhole with your room number, locked the door, and took the (small) key. It just seemed so unusual to lock up one key with another, but someone later told me of a similar experience in another Swiss hotel.

The rest of the afternoon was for seeing Zermatt. Leaving the front of the Tenne I could already see the distinctive top of the Matterhorn peering over the tops of roofs, and those intermittent views continued all the way through town down the main street. I walked the few steps down past the stations again and plunged into the mass of people. What shall I say [EAT HERE] about walking down [ROLEX] the Bahnhofstrasse in Zermatt? It was like being [STAY HERE] in a shopping mall [MACDONALDS] from hell. The crowds were [TOBLORONE] bad enough, but many [SWATCH] of the shops even [LONGINES] had discount tables outside giving [CHOCOLATE] a particularly cheap appearance. It was tourist kitsch [SALE! AUSVERKAUF! SOLDES!] in the extreme. I did not remember Zermatt this way. There were nice enough hotels and restaurants mixed in—I had dinner in one—but it must have been noisy to stay there, to say nothing of unpleasant. In fairness, around the edge of town and across the Vispa there seemed to be a lot more pleasant chalets and hotels, though none as conveniently located as the Tenne.

But on my march southward there was a pleasant interlude. Signs indicated that all summer long there were special events as part of a folk festival, and that two Alphorn players were scheduled here and there around town that week, and in a more pleasant open area on Bahnhofstrasse in front of a church, there they were. As I understand it, the Alphorn started as a signaling and communication device, just as Indian smoke signals and—Jodeln/yodeling. As luck would have it, on YouTube there are many examples of people playing an Alphorn, from a solo to a hundred at an Alphorn festival, but here I found just what I had seen, two players, and right in Zermatt to boot. Alphorns in Zermatt

Matterhorn   It was, not counting stops, about a half-hour’s walk through town until the countryside started appearing, and das Matterhorn, which had been peeking out tantalizingly between and over buildings, was visible in full view. I sat down in a pleasant area on the banks of the Vispa and just stared. Once again, as at the Jungfrau, there was that “diamond” view: low foothills on either side formed a dark V-neck to surround that so very distinctive peak. And distinctive it is. Few mountains rise to such a sharp peak, like a slender pyramid. It has four Wände/faces, and it’s the Ostwand/East Face that’s the famous view. It’s famous because, being the view right from Zermatt, it’s the one most frequently seen (actually, its both the east and north faces that face Zermatt). The top of the Matterhorn has always reminded me of a beckoning finger.

It is without doubt the most easily recognizable mountain in the world. It serves as an mountain icon similarly to how Venice serves as a canal icon. Just as a city with canals can be called “The Venice of …”, there are local mountains that are referred to as “The Matterhorn of …”. And of course, Disney World has its fake Matterhorn.

The German word Matte means “meadow”, in particular an Alpine meadow, so it tends to be again more of a Swiss word. Zermatt is derived from “zur Matte” (at the meadow), and has suburbs including Steinmatte, Schluchmatten, Winkelmatten, Obere (Upper) and Untere (Lower) Matten. Even Interlaken has a suburb called Matten.

Although the word for “peak/summit” is Gipfel, the Swiss like to take the word Horn, which, as in English, refers to either a bony projection on an animal’s head or a musical instrument (including the Alphorn), and use it for names of peaks such as the Breithorn or Wetterhorn. Although we don’t translate names, do understand that das Matterhorn could be “the Peak of the Meadows”, or, why not, “the Horn of the Meadows”. Also, note this variation in the two others languages adjacent to the mountain: in French it’s le Cervin and in Italian, il Cervino.

Here’s a YouTube view of the mountain. It does show winter views, but even in the summer there was a bit of snow on high: Das Matterhorn

I sat and relaxed on the side of the Vispa with some genuine Matten nearby and stared in the late afternoon light until all senses were saturated, then walked back to the north side of Zermatt to the Tenne. However this time, instead of walking back along the (to me) undesirable, dollar-grubbing (franc-grubbing, euro-grubbing) Bahnhofstrasse on the west side of the narrow, long town, since I was already at the point where that street joined the river road, I walked back on that more pleasant route, Bachstrasse (“Brook Street”) along the Vispa. My feeling as to the commercial district was “so near and yet so far”. On the other side of the Vispa were pleasant homes and some of the nicer small hotels I referred to earlier, with the occasional footbridge across to them, and the rapid flow of the river was hypnotic. I find it amazing how these Alpine rivers I walked along (die Reuss in Luzern, die Aare bei Meiringen, die Vispa in Zermatt) move so quickly, like rapids, and how steely-gray-brown their color is. I rarely have negative things to say about places I’ve chosen to visit, and I heartily recommend Zermatt for all the gentle, laid-back-in-the-mountain positive things outside of that touristy core. Just be forewarned. Anyone got a match?

The next day, on my one full day in Zermatt, I did something new that I’d wanted to do for a long time, take the Gornergratbahn (GGB), which opened in 1899, further up into the mountains. “Grat” means “ridge”, so this would be the Gorner Ridge Railway going up to the Gornergletscher / Gorner Glacier. As I said, the station is right across the street from the MGB I’d come up with, and actually, both railways are owned by the same company and have common management. As with the railways at the Jungfrau, the GGB charges an additional fee, but does give a discount if you have the Swiss Card.

The train, moving south as always, slowly rises above Zermatt with sweeping views back down to it, and with the Matterhorn on the right. It’s a cog railway, meter gauge, and rises in its 9.3 kilometers / 5.8 miles a total of 1469 m / 4820’ above Zermatt, making five stops along the way at resorts, and passing the tree line. About midway it had turned left as the valley does, so that now, the lay of the land is an L shape with the Matterhorn at the bend, visible from Zermatt south down its valley and the Gornergrat station west down its valley. This last top of the Gornergratbahn boasts of being the highest open-air railway station in Europe at 3089 m / 10,135’. Do you see the caveat in that sentence? Scoffers will say that the last stop of the Jungfraubahn is the highest railway station in Europe at 3454 m /11,332’, but this one is the highest OPEN-AIR station in Europe, since the Jungfraubahn is in a tunnel. So there. Actually, as exciting as it is to be so high in a tunnel, let’s face it, you don’t see much on the ride itself, so it’s really more spectacular having the open-air ride of the Gornergratbahn. People were hiking all over, especially back down the path to Zermatt, the walk being posted as between 3 and 3.25 hours. You could also take your bike up on the train and cycle down which reminds me what my friend and I did from Grindelwald to Interlaken when we were 17, this route, though, being higher, longer, and more spectacular.

There is a hotel at the top of the ridge that last year celebrated its centennial 1907-2007. Of course, it’s called the Kulm-Hotel. From the terraces around the hotel you have a 365° panorama, and the day was spot-on perfect. The temperature of 8°C/42°F was quite comfortable in the sun. The term Viertausender, which I’ll translate as four-thousander, refers to a mountain over 4000 meters / 13,123 feet. This area is famous for its view of no fewer than 29 Viertausender.

Of course, there always that point slightly higher than the station and hotel, that everyone has to slog up to. The uppermost terrace, then is the highest point I reached that day at 3136 m / 10,289’. And this is what you saw, from here or also from the hotel area. If you looked to the north, which was the “less interesting” direction, you saw a sea of Viertausender covered with snow, so many that it was hard to identify them from the identifying tables.

But it was looking south that was priceless. Straight down below the Gornergrat was the Gornergletscher, a valley glacier that is the second largest in Switzerland after the Aletschgletscher one sees from the Jungfrau. The Gorner is 14 kilometers / 8.7 miles long and 1 to 1.5 k / 0.6 to 0.9 miles wide, comes down from the Monte Rosa massif on the left, and has several glaciers joining it like fingers as it runs left-to-right down towards the Matterhorn.

The entire massif facing you forms the border with Italy, that is, the border runs along the mountaintops. That means that the Gornergrat is the southernmost point of the contiguous German-speaking area in all of Europe. Italy, and Italian, looms over the mountains opposite, and French is spoken not far to the west. The massif is named after Monte Rosa on one’s extreme left, with an Italian influence already obvious in its name, and the higher of its peaks is the Dufourspitze / Dufour Peak, named after a Swiss with a French name, so the blend of the three neighboring languages is apparent just in referring to “the Dufourspitze of Monte Rosa”. Here you are looking at the highest point in Switzerland at 4634 m / 15,203’. The Matterhorn is fourth at 4478 m / 14,692, but is the most famous and most photographed, and the Jungfrau is a mere tenth at 4158 m / 13,642’. Remember, there are all those Viertausender around. While I was in Zermatt I’d heard that the young Winston Churchill had climbed the Dufourspitze of Monte Rosa, but I was somewhat incredulous. I checked later online—he did so in 1894.

This magnificent view, then, continuing from Monte Rosa above the Gorner Glacier, continues with several mountains, including the Breithorn and Klein-Matterhorn (Little Matterhorn), until the view is down the valley to the Matterhorn itself. However, from this angle you’re not looking at the famous Ostwand / East Face that you see from Zermatt but instead what must be the Südwand / South Face, which lacks that familiar “beckoning finger” look.

I have been lucky at finding good videos on YouTube (there’s also a lot of chaff there among the wheat) corresponding to what I saw. This one had the perfect weather I had, but is more of a winter view, although I saw quite a bit of snow at that altitude. Gornergrat View