Monday, June 3, 2019

Switzerland - 3rd June

Headed off on the train after breakfast to the top of Jungfraujoch, the top of Europe.

The mountains are spectacular as we traveled up to a height of 3.5 klms above sea level. To put that into perspective, Mount Ossa, Tasmania's highest mountain is a mere 1.6 klms high. The highest mountain in Australia is Mount Kosciuszko at only 2.2 klms high. 
There is certainly less air up here and taking the steps two at a time almost instantly makes you dizzy and your legs weak.

We had a good look around, checked out the ice palace and then headed back down on the rack and pinion train. Here's some photo's from the trip


 Just to give some scale, in the middle of the red circle on this photo there are two people.


On a side note.
Switzerland has been accused of keeping millions of dollars worth of stolen Nazi gold hidden in their banks by Hitler in WW2. The bank has a policy that if no will is left directing the deposits elsewhere, it becomes the property of the banks. Many questions were asked about the Nazi gold after the war, Switzerland's answer to this has always been 'What gold?"
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Education is Switzerland is free, because it is a civilised country.
All able bodied men must spend 18 weeks in the army. They are then sent home with their uniforms and guns. This is so that the Swiss have a huge army to call on instantly as soon as any conflict breaks out. They are a neutral country, so they won't invade, it's defence only.



We popped into Interlaken for a look around and then headed back to Wilderswil.
Tammy had to follow the sounds of the cow bells to find a couple of very big cows.





 




Back to the hotel for a traditional cheese fondue tea. Steven thought the beer was better. The hotel is 300 years old, here is the view from our room. That's our tour bus there.

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