Tag: Switzerland

Story of the day: Riding the Jungfrau Express

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Given the snow today, I thought this one matched the mood.

It’s a story from the Telegraph about a winter-wonderland trip to Switzerland with my dad.

It appeared as a preview for the 150th anniversary of the Jungfrau Express, one of Europe’s great rail journeys.

Here’s an extract:

Italian miners first blasted through the mountain to Jungfraujoch on February 21, 1912, to complete the construction of the railway tunnel. They’d been trying since 1896.

The railway brought a new breed of genteel visitor to the Jungfrau region and, today, carries around 700,000 passengers per year.

Just getting to the train is quite a journey in itself. We changed trains first at Kleine Scheidegg, where ski runs whoosh beside the track in a blur of goggles and baby grows, and cable cars trundle overhead.

From here to Europe’s highest railway station at Jungfraujoch, located at an air-thinning altitude of 3,454m, the feat-of-engineering railway climbs cautiously through a tunnel at a steep gradient of one in four.

The story isn’t online via the publisher but I reproduced it on my old blog.

Read the full story, Riding the Memory Train.

And post your comments below.

Story of the day: Reading up on Heidi

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Another of my new year resolution is to do more family travel work. Here’s an early example.

This story, taken from the Daily Mail, was inspired by the idea I was reading Heidi with my own little girl, Maya (pictured above). That got us thinking about reading the story in the context of the Alps.

Here’s an extract:

The official Heidi Trail starts from the station and leads up the mountain, following the route Heidi would have walked to meet her grandfather for the first time.

The first stop is the Heidi fountain, a stone carving of the little girl set among a picnic area. We stop to take in the view, Maya splashing in the cool Alpine water, before following the trail uphill past the Heidihof Hotel to the hamlet of Oberrofels, now named the Heidi Village.

This is home to the Heidi House museum, a souvenir shop and a petting zoo with playful goats. On the way, the fields are filled with the flowers and aroma of the firs.

Read the full story, The Swiss who has enchanted generations.

What is your favourite story to read with kids? Have you visited Heidiland?

Post your comments below.