After our magnificent first big rail trip around Scandinavia the year before, my best friend suggested we went to discover Switzerland by rail in 2013. He was inspired by his aunt’s trips to Switzerland and always wanted to go there himself, of course I couldn’t say no as the country spoke to me too. So off we went on a second rail adventure together.

On the first part of the day we travelled up and down the Jungfrau on the rack railways. As our trip back down from the Jungfrau to Interlaken took us back down via Grindelwald we decided to take a side trip and travel up the First cable car. This cable car was also included in the mountain railway passwe bought to discover the Jungfrau region. Contrary to its name it’s not the first cable car we travelled on nor was it the first cable car in the world, it’s just the cable car going up the First mountain.

Once again we could enjoy some wonderful scenery along the route, seeing the different alpine climates as we climbed higher. One of the peculiarities of this cable car is that you can stay seated in your car as it passes through intermediate stops, usually when there is an intermediate stop you have to get out and walk to the next one. However this being a newer system the car merely slows down in the stations allowing people to get on and off before continuing to the next stops, a bit like a bus.

After going up and down the First mountain, we took a leisurely stroll through the small town of Grindelwald before boarding our Berner Oberland Bahn train back to Interlaken. We took a different route to the morning until Zweilutschinen where our train was coupled onto the Lauterbrunnen part of the journey and continued combined towards the final stop of Interlaken. In the next part we will be talking about what we did the following days.