Jungfrau Trip Report 11-14 March 2016

A snowHead

In a bipolar moment I decided to splash out on a long weekend skiing in the Jungfrau as a surprise birthday gift for Mrs Jirac. I had been searching extensively for deals on packages and diy and stumbled upon super cheap flights from Bristol to Basel with Easyjet (£86 in total for two adults Friday out and Monday return). Basel offers excellent transfer times and distance to quite a range of resorts in Switzerland and my favoured option was by train but this proved too expensive at around £100 per person so I hired a car from the airport through www.rentalcars.com and collected a very nice Seat Leon from Avis on the French side for £42 all in. The same car from the Swiss side was quoted at £125 (go figure).

Our drive down to Grindelwald took two hours due to some heavy traffic out of Basel but we knocked 15 minutes off that on the return journey. The last half an hour of the drive is stunning with beautiful views of the lakes at Interlakken and the climb up from the valley into resort is special.

I hired skis through www.alpinresorts.com and collected them from Bernet Sports just fifty yards from our hotel on the main road through the charming town of Grindelwald. The staff at Bernet Sports were super polite and efficient and it was the least stressful collection of kit on any ski trip to date. I had a pair of Head Rev 80 pros and Mrs j also had some heads but I can't recall model. cost of rental for the two days was £105.

We stayed at the Tschuggen hotel which I found on booking.com at a total cost of £300 for three nights including breakfast. It's a relatively small family run hotel and the staff were excellent, very helpful and friendly and the room was warm with ensuite and beautiful view across to the Lauberhorn. They had a ski and boot room with heaters to put boots on. I would certainly use this hotel again. It's location is superb right in town and easy 5 minute walk to the Firstbahn gondola station or the railway station to Grund and across to Wengen.

on Saturday we decided to ski Grindelwald side of the area. There was low cloud in town but after a very short distance up in the gondola we were above the cloud into blistering sunshine and the view was breathtaking. We sat in awe all the way up to the very top with stunning views of Wetterhorn, Eiger, Lauberhorn and beyond. This was without doubt the most picturesque resort we have visited. We spent all day this side and covered pretty much every single piste ending on red 22 at the top end of Grindelwald town just a two minute bus ride to our hotel. All the pistes which are mainly red and blue were very well groomed with snow in abundance although a bit hard packed in places. The pistes are wide and were reasonably quiet and there were several snow parks and slalom runs to play on. The off piste was pretty well tracked out all over but so extensive that some untouched runs could easily be found. Black 5 and 6 down to Bort were well worth it and whilst relatively ungroomed and challenging were great fun and pretty steep in places. There were plenty of mountain huts for drinks all over the resort and we had a very nice soup lunch at Berghaus Bort.

We got back into town and had a quick apres at the Espresso Bar next to our hotel. The two guys running the bar were great and friendly and it offers happy hour from 4-7 on beer. From there we went down to the Sports Centre in town and watched the England vs Wales rugby on a big screen in the bar overlooking the ice hockey rink. There were quite a few locals watching the rugby which surprised me and they generally thought it was a bit nuts!

After the rugby we listened to a live band in the square outside and which was fun then had dinner at the hotel Bellevue pinte. The fondue oberlander was awesome tho I did get the cheese sweats that night!!

Sunday morning we jumped on the train from Grund and enjoyed the spectacular ride up through Brandegg alighting at Scheidegg and taking the chairlift up to the top of Lauberhorn. it would be easy to not ski at all and stand for hours gawping at the scenery but in glorious sunshine we set off down to Wengen. The runs down to Wengen offer everything from tree lined blue/green through forest and beautiful chalets to the World Cup black 45. From Wengen after suitable libation we went up to Mannlichen on the gondola and saw some wild goats (chamois I think) grazing on the ares where the snow had melted already. The skiing on the other side down from Mannlichen is wide ranging. There were some cruising blues and wide steep reds and a variety of chairs and gondolas back up to the top. All the runs are parallel to each other but each one quite different to the next and it's easy to cover lots of miles on these pistes quickly. The only piste Mrs j came unstuck on was red 8 down to gummi which considering how mogul and steep it was was harder than any of the black runs. We ended our trip by skiing top to bottom from Eigergletscher all the way to Grund on a mix of black red and then tree lined blue tracks which again offered amazing views of the eiger.

Sunday night we dined at Barry's restaurant in the Eiger Selfness Hotel. This was fantastic and I highly recommend it. The owners and table staff were so nice and attentive. We opted for a bbq/grill special whereby you can select from a variety of raw meats and veggies which you load up and take to the hot plate and grill and chef cooks it all fresh with your own choice of chilli garlic and other oils. They than bring it round and serve it to you at your table. the salad bar was great too.

Overall there's no doubt that drinking and eating out in this resort is expensive as it is in most of Switzerland. Don't go and try to scrimp or expect cheap dinners out. I set aside enough to know we could just relax and enjoy it knowing we have bargains on the flights transfer and reasonably priced hotel. It's not the cheapest place but my god it's one of the most beautiful and most enjoyable. this was our first trip away without the children other than the odd night out at home or overnighter in London and it was the very best! We wouldn't hesitate in going back to Grindelwald and the whole town and area offered everything and more than we wanted or expected.

If anyone has any questions or is thinking of going to Jungfrau please fire away and if I can help I will. Enjoy the rest of the season and hope you all have as much fun as we have this year in our three trips to Grand Massif, Kitzbuheler Alps and Jungfrau!!

Final costing of 4 day holiday two full days skiing including all flights transfers equipment and ski passes for a couple was £598. Dinner and drinks on top of that.

A snowHead

Great report, thanks for sharing. That is a fantastic price for a weekend away in Grindelwald!

The Jungfrau area is really special, can't wait for our Easter break in Wengen. Had to laugh at the red 8 to Gummi bit, there's a nice little section on it that catches quite a few out if you go right instead of left about half way down to the lift. My OH hates it too! That stretch is probably as steep and certainly a bit longer than the Hundschopf section on the Lauberhorn. it's a small black in disguise.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Nice write up. Went to Jungfrau (Wengen for us) for first time last easter. Lying in bed wondering what I have forgotten to pack before the taxi arrives to take us to the airport for a return visit. A really beautiful part of the world. Never made it to Murren last time, so really looking forward to that.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

As a regular to the area I'd just mention that if you order your liftpass at least 3 weeks in advance from www.jungfrau.ch/en you can get a 20% discount on the normal price.

Help!!

Jungfrau Trip Report 11-14 March 2016

snowHeads Forum Index >>> Resort Reviews and Trip Reports