Wengen

We've had two holidays now at Wengen, in the Bernese Oberland, in September 06 and June this year. We've now booked the next one in September 09. It's an idyllic little mountain village, on the way up to the Jungfrau, and can only be reached by the mountain cog railway -or on foot. We have a favourite hotel, and people go there year after year. The views are stunning, and the walking possibilities endless. The trains themselves are great fun, riding up very steep gradients and affording gorgeous views. A few miles up the line there is Kleine Scheidegg, must be one of the highest railway junctions in Europe, where you can catch the red trains going up through the long tunnel through the eiger to the Jungfraujoch. Or the green and yellow trains down the next valley to Grindelwald. There we can take a gondola up to First, another starting point for superb walking and views. In June this year, some of those walks were still covered in snow in parts. All in all, a wonderful palce to be, but you need two weeks to explore- and to spread out the inevitable wet days, when the clouds come down and the best walks are in the Lauterbrunnen valley.

We travelled there by train from Ashford: overnight in Paris, then via Mulhouse, Basle, Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen. You can fly to Zurich, but you will still have a long train journey and we're fed up with Gatwick.