Another stunning panoramic painted rail map from the Alps of Switzerland – its very similar to this one of the Zentralbahn (Nov 2012, 4 stars), which can actually be seen on this map entering from the lower left and terminating at Interlaken.

The map shows the railways around the Jungfrau mountain, operated by different companies, but marketed together as “Jungfrau – the Top of Europe”. The Jungfraujoch station sits almost three vertical kilometres higher than Interlaken, and is the highest railway station in Europe. The last 7 km of the trip is all within a tunnel through the massive mountain range (shown as a dashed line on the map above): two intermediary stations have panoramic windows to observe the spectacular scenery.

The map is quite beautiful, making the absolute most out of the spectacular landscape, although the sheer lushness of the illustration can make some of the text a little hard to make out. As an added bonus, other connecting services outside the Jungbahn network – be it rail or aerial cable car – are also shown in black.

Just in case this map has inspired you to head off to Switzerland to catch the next train, be warned that this trip is not cheap. The trip from Kleine Scheidegg station (the start of the actual Jungfraubahn to the summit) costs 120 Swiss Francs (roughly €100, or $US130). If you want to come from Interlaken Ost, that’s a mere 196 CHF (€160/$US211). Ouch!

Our rating: Stunningly beautiful illustrated map. Four stars.

Source: guywong/Flickr