May 11 to May 14, Lucerne to Interlocken to Montreux via Jungfrau

From Lucerne I went to Interlocken, dropped my luggage with the agent who booked my trip, then continued on to the Jungfrau, called the "Top of Europe".  It is just over 10,000 feet high, but because you are rising from near sea level, it is quite spectatcular.  The unfortunate part is the last 50 minutes is all under ground and you arrive at the Jungfrau inside a cavern and walk into - you guessed it - a Gift Shop!  Of course there was also a snack bar and once you got past those you could take pictures of the snow.  I have to confess it was a bit underwhelming - I think our trip up the mountain in Palm Springs was actually more thrilling - but I digress.

What was spectacular was the trip to and from the Jungfrau.  We went from Interlocken to Lauterbrunnen (change trains), then to Kleine Scheidegg (change train) to the Jungfraujoch.  My agent booked me back a different way, so I got to see another side of the mountains, which were just as spectacular.  We went from Jungfraujoch to Klein Sheidegg (change train) to Grindelwald (change train) to Interlocken.  You can see what I mean about the train changes.  I read part of it is because different areas in Switzerland had different guage of train tracks.  Also from Kleine Sheidegg on it is more of a cog railroad rather than an engine driven train, and once we experienced the slope of our climb, it was understandable.

Interlocken was nice but not as pretty as Lucerne, I thought.  I walked to my hotel  where I stayed in my room since I apparently picked up whatever was going around the cruise ship (yes, I washed my hands a lot and used hand sanitizer).  

From Interlocken I came to Montreux Switzerland which is also quite beautiful and on the shore of Lake Geneva.  I posted pictures from the balconey of my apartment on my facebook page.  I am writing tonight, the last night of my trip.  Tomorrow morning, I start my trek home, taking the train to Geneva Airport, flying to Heathrow and ultimately to Denver.

I will be adding one more post talking about my experience of booking my trip, my opinions on the different tours I took and traveling alone in Europe.  I've had several people ask me to wrtie them about that, so it seemed easiest just to add it to my blog.

The pictures below were taken along the Golden Pass which took me from Lucerne to Interlocken and the Jungfrau.  The scenery was amazing.