Jungfraujoch

Go for the railway's own story, told on the spot. In the 250 m Alpine Sensation corridor between the Sphinx hall and the Ice Palace, 30 tablets name the Italian workers who died building the line, and the railway says each worker was given a bottle of red wine a day. On the summit, Restaurant Crystal lists the Humagne Blanche that matured in oak barrels in the Ice Palace; in Grindelwald the Cork Club lists it too.

The railway calls the visit its Discovery Tour and says each stop takes about 15 minutes: the lift to the Sphinx terrace at 3,571 m, the Ice Palace with its ice sculptures at about minus three degrees, and the 250 m Alpine Sensation corridor. Restaurant Crystal serves lunch at the table, with Valais wines by the glass: Petite Arvine and Cornalin from Caves Orsat, Chardonnay and Gamay from Gregor Kuonen. The Pikantus Lounge pours beer.

Any month: the summit is open all year, and the railway says snow and ice are guaranteed on the glacier plateau 365 days a year. From 1 May to 31 October a seat reservation on the trains is compulsory, and the Good Morning Ticket takes 20% off the first two trains up, provided the trip down from the Jungfraujoch starts by 13:17. Restaurant Crystal is listed daily 11:00–14:30, so plan the ride around lunch.

Return tickets start at CHF 129.60, the railway's lowest published fare; the full price depends on the starting station, the date and any travel card, and the railway's online price calculator shows it. The Jungfrau Travel Pass, from CHF 165, carries a special Jungfraujoch price. At Crystal, an open Chasselas from Lake Biel costs CHF 6.70 a decilitre and the ice-aged Reine des Glaces CHF 199 a bottle. No wine is sold to anyone under 16; an alcohol-free sparkling wine from Swiss grapes is on the list.

From Grindelwald Terminal, the Eiger Express gondola reaches Eigergletscher in 15 minutes and the Jungfrau Railway continues through the Eiger and the Mönch; the railway gives 45 minutes in all. From Lauterbrunnen or Wengen, the Wengernalp railway climbs to Kleine Scheidegg, where passengers change to the Jungfrau Railway. In the tunnel the train halts 5 minutes at Eismeer, around 3,160 m. The summit is a stop on the Wengen trail.

Jungfraujoch is the summit station of the Jungfrau Railway, at 3,454 m, which the railway calls Europe's highest railway station; trains reach it from Grindelwald and Wengen in the Bernese Oberland. Opened on 1 August 1912, it leads, the railway says, to the Sphinx terrace over the Aletsch glacier, the Ice Palace cut into the Jungfraufirn and the Alpine Sensation corridor. Restaurant Crystal, the summit's à la carte restaurant, pours from what the railway calls a selected wine list.

Building started on 27 July 1896. Up to 200 people lived at the Eigergletscher camp, about 160 of them Italians, and the railway says the site management gave each worker a bottle of red wine a day to keep them in good spirits. The historian Peter Krebs counted 30 lives lost, most of them in dynamite explosions. In 2012 the 30 Italian workers who died each received a name plate on the tunnel wall.

The memorial is not at the old Eigerwand stop, which closed in late 2016, nor on the platform: the 30 tablets line the corridor between the Sphinx hall and the Ice Palace. The ice-aged Humagne Blanche is a small wine, about 1,000 bottles a year by the NZZ's count, and the NZZ names Crystal and the Mönchsjoch hut as places to drink it. The ice bar where it was first tasted, on 18 April 2023, hosted invited guests only.