Grindelwald (1), Switzerland 🇨🇭 2023

Date: 4-5th September 2023

Travelled: 210 kms from Vaduz in Liechtenstein to Grindelwald in Switzerland  

Visited: Grindelwald and the Eiger  

Stayed: Camping Eigernordwand, €44, N46.62180, E08.01590  

Budget: 107 days @ €93 per day

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We plan an early departure from Vaduz as the car-park in Vaduz costs after 8 am. The early departure is assisted by trucks and cranes arriving to construct a temporary stage and seating around 6am. By 7 am we’ve had a coffee, some fruit and cross back over the Rhine into Switzerland and continue west on the A6.

Whilst the A6 is a lovely road it’s busy add some roadworks and a three hour drive becomes four hours.

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Grindelwald has three campsites, our first choice is the site nearest the terminal. Luckily enough we get a spot as the full sign goes up a couple of hours later. There’s not a near level piece of ground anywhere, but they supply large chocks, so we manage to get level after a bit of mucking around.

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Half an hour later we hear the familiar twang of New Zealand accents and we go out and introduce ourselves to Sandra, James and Deb our new next door neighbours.

After introduction we agree to get together for a drink later.

Time to do a little exploring and work out how the gondolas and trains work for tomorrow. So a walk to the terminal, which has two of the largest gondolas operating from, a bus interchange and a ticket office for all the local activities. Thirty minutes later we have a plan for the next few days.

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Pictured above the Eiger takes on a pink hue as the sunsets.

Next morning bright and early we walk off to the terminal, we decided on a 3 day pass which basically gives you access to everything that moves.

We then board the Eiger Expess Gondola for the 15 minute ride to Eigergletscher Station. This lift is very fast each gondola carrying 20+ passengers, the ride amazingly smooth.

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From Eigergletscher we transfer to the Jungfrau cog railway for the 25 minute trip to the Top of Europe station. Both are amazing examples of engineering. The train line runs within the Eiger like a corkscrew to the top.

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After taking photos from here and there, we walk out on the glacier for some 500 m before we find ourselves exhausted. The altitude of 3,800 m certainly makes an up hill walk very difficult. There’s little left to do other than watch the young Chinese or Korean tourist going down the zip-line or watching those with a ridiculously high credit card limited going for joy-flights around the mountain.

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So we return to the train and start the trip back down the mountain. Just as interesting going down, we find ourselves back at the terminal about 40 minutes later.

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Having enjoyed our day on the Eiger we debrief our day with our neighbours before calling it a day.

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Michael + Pam