Grindelwald

A gondola strung in one line from the terminal below the village up to the Eiger's foot, opened in 2020. It cut more than forty minutes off the old way, which changed trains twice. Wind stops this line first. Check in the morning whether it is turning.

Climbers on the wall cannot be picked out with the naked eye. A coin in one of the telescopes around the village turns them into dots, and only when the air is clear. Several parties failed to come back off it before the first ascent in 1938.

The slot the glacier left as it pulled back is narrow enough to touch both walls at once. A timber walkway pinned into the rock hangs over the water, and its noise drowns whoever is beside you. The planks come out in summer and are lifted once snow arrives.

A steel walkway bolted to the rock runs along the cliff, loops once over open air and returns. The floor is grating, so the drop stays in view, and a platform juts past the rail at the far end. It is inside the gondola ticket and costs nothing more.

Come when the air is still, in the morning. The mountains only stand in the water while the surface holds flat, and by midday the ripple breaks them up. It is an hour's easy walk from First on a path that does not demand boots.

One corner of the churchyard behind the village holds the stones of those the mountains kept. Under each name is the peak the person was on and the age reached, which on more stones than you expect is around twenty.

The post bus climbs to the pass on a road so narrow that it sounds a three-note horn at every bend. That call tells oncoming traffic to give way, so walkers step to the verge when they hear it. The top opens into flat pasture with cattle on it.

Slow before the gravel corners, because the front wheel washes out. You hire a scooter with no saddle and ride the farm track down through the pasture to the village, braking from the handlebars as on a bicycle. At the bottom it is left at the gondola station.

Pasture grazed by cattle in summer and the start of a sledge run in winter. Once the snow sets, a track opens from here down to the village, and the bends make one descent take over half an hour. Sledges are hired in the village and carried up on the bus.

A three-storey timber house holds valley household goods beside early climbing gear. The rope is twisted hemp, the crampons beaten by hand. That shows what the people in the photographs upstairs had on their feet. Labels are German only, so the objects talk.

From Grindelwald Terminal a gondola rises to the Mannlichen ridge, where a short climb ends at a crown-shaped deck. One side drops to Grindelwald, the other to the Lauterbrunnen valley. A level panorama trail leads on to Kleine Scheidegg and the train back.

A small cable car from the upper, eastern edge of the village climbs to the Pfingstegg slope. In summer a sledge rides a steel rail down the hill, its speed held by a single lever. The hut terrace above looks over the glacier gorge and the village roofs.

A zipline running 800 metres from the top of First down to the Schreckfeld midway station. Four riders launch abreast, and the descent takes under a minute. In high summer the wait between ticket and turn can be long.

A path descending from Eigergletscher station to Alpiglen station along the very foot of the north face. The rock looms overhead to one side the whole way, and in early summer you hear stones fall. It opens once the snow clears, around July.

The pass station where trains from Grindelwald and from Wengen meet. The rack trains up to the Jungfraujoch start here, so the platforms stay busy. The terrace in front faces the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau at close range.