Jungfraujoch Tickets / Ice Palace
Corridors cut into the glacier in the 1930s and held at a constant minus three degrees. Expect about 15 minutes, included in every ticket, and the one part of the visit that bad weather cannot spoil.
Tickets that get you there
BestsellerThe standard return by rail from Interlaken Ost. The ice corridors, the Alpine Sensation, the Plateau and the Sphinx terrace are all covered once you arrive.
Includes:
Best price starting at
Best valueThe quicker route, by gondola from Grindelwald Terminal to Eigergletscher and on by rail, which leaves more of the day for the attractions themselves.
Includes:
Best price starting at
Entry to the ice corridors is included.What you buy is the journey to the top.We may earn a commission when you book through these links, at no extra cost to you.The price you pay is Headout's own.
All ticketsThe Ice Palace Jungfraujoch is a set of corridors and chambers cut directly into the glacier ice below the top station at 3,454 metres, held at a constant minus three degrees Celsius. It is included in every ticket to the Jungfraujoch, it takes about 15 minutes to walk through, and it is the one attraction up there that looks exactly the same in a snowstorm as it does in sunshine.
The terrace and the Plateau are at the mercy of the cloud; this is not. If you arrive to a grey window, the Ice Palace and the Alpine Sensation corridor are what you do while you wait for the sky to make up its mind.
The Ice Palace Jungfraujoch was carved out in the 1930s by mountain guides working with hand tools inside the ice of the glacier. Nothing about it is a modern engineering feat with lighting rigs and refrigeration plant. It is a tunnel system in moving ice, kept open and reshaped over the decades, and the walls still carry the marks of the tools that opened them.
Because the ice moves, the place is not fixed in the way a building is. Corridors shift, get re-cut, and are reworked. What you walk through is a maintained space inside something that is slowly flowing downhill, which is a strange idea to hold in your head while you are standing in it.
The carvings in the ice are the part most people photograph. They are lit from within the ice itself in places, which is why the blue reads so much stronger in photographs than you expect from looking at the ceiling of a tunnel.
Yes, and there is no separate ticket desk. The Ice Palace Jungfraujoch, the Sphinx terrace at 3,571 metres, the Plateau and the Alpine Sensation are all covered by the ordinary return journey to the top. The only things that cost extra once you arrive are food, shopping and the Snow Fun Park, which sells its own tickets for the zipline, the sledging run and the ski and snowboard area.
The cost is the journey. A full-fare adult return from Interlaken Ost starts from CHF 234. Half Fare Card holders pay from CHF 122, Swiss Travel Pass holders from CHF 157, all as ticket types on the same ticket chosen at checkout. Children aged 6 to 15 pay CHF 30 flat, and every ticket includes a reserved seat on a return departure about 3 hours after arrival. Our Jungfraujoch ticket prices table lays out every origin and ticket type.
The temperature inside holds at minus three degrees Celsius whatever the season. Set that against the MeteoSwiss climate normals for Jungfraujoch, measured from 1991 to 2020: the annual mean is minus 6.7 degrees, February averages minus 12.6 and August averages plus 1.3.
| When | Typical outside air | Inside the ice | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|
| August | About plus 1.3 degrees on the monthly mean | Minus 3 degrees | The coldest part of a summer visit. Summer visitors in shorts feel it within a minute |
| Year round | About minus 6.7 degrees on the annual mean | Minus 3 degrees | Slightly warmer than the annual average outside, so a mild change |
| February | About minus 12.6 degrees on the monthly mean | Minus 3 degrees | Warmer inside than out. The corridors are a break from the cold, not an extra dose of it |
The common mistake is assuming Jungfraujoch is frozen solid all year and dressing for February in August. It is not: the official position is that the hottest months are regularly above the zero degree limit. The ice corridors are the exception, because they are refrigerated by the glacier around them rather than by the day's weather.
The floor is ice, polished smooth by everyone who has walked it that day, and it slopes in places. Handrails run along the corridors, and people use them. Shoes with a grippy sole are the difference between an easy quarter of an hour and a careful shuffle.
The Alpine Sensation is the other indoor stretch inside the complex, and the two work as a pair. It is a 250 metre corridor that opened on 30 March 2012, a hundred years after the railway first reached the Jungfraujoch, and it carries 30 memorial tablets for the workers who built the tunnel through the mountain. Allow about 15 minutes there too.
Taken together, the ice chambers and the memorial corridor cover roughly half an hour of the visit, all of it under cover, and the pairing tells the same story from two angles: the ice the tunnel runs through, and the people who cut the tunnel. Most visitors walk the Alpine Sensation without stopping because it sits on the route between the station and the rest of the complex. It repays reading the tablets.
If your day is short, this pair plus the Sphinx terrace is the core of the visit. Everything else, the Plateau, the shops, the post office, the restaurants, is optional in a way these are not.
Fifteen minutes is the working figure for the ice corridors. The full visit to the top is officially at least three and a half to four and a half hours from Grindelwald Terminal by the Eiger Express, or five to six hours by the classic route over Kleine Scheidegg. That time has to cover the terrace, the Plateau, the two indoor stretches, and something to eat.
The timing rule is simple: do the outdoor parts when the weather is good and save the ice for when it is not. On a clear morning, go up to the Sphinx first and come back down to the corridors later. On a day of low cloud, walk the ice and the memorial corridor first and give the sky two hours to clear. Our Jungfraujoch opening hours and timetable page explains the seasonal service blocks, and there is no separate opening time for the attractions inside: the mountain is open while the railway runs.
The Ice Palace Jungfraujoch is easy to lose half an hour in, and the descent is not something to leave to chance. Note your last connection when you arrive, not when you start to feel tired.
The ice corridors are one of four things the standard fare includes at the top. The Sphinx Observatory terrace at 3,571 metres is reached by a lift that climbs 108 metres in 25 seconds and looks out over the Aletsch Glacier, 22 kilometres of ice up to 900 metres thick and part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Plateau is the snowfield outside at 3,454 metres, with snow all year. The Alpine Sensation is the corridor described above.
Around those, the complex has Europe's highest post office, open since 1912 with its own postcode 3801, a Lindt chocolate shop, restaurants including one that serves a la carte from 11:00 to 14:30 every day of the year, free WiFi on the network visitors@JB, and a free 90 minute audio Discovery Tour that runs on your own phone. None of that changes the shape of the visit. The ice, the memorial corridor and the terrace do.
Before you book
What people ask before they book.
Yes. Entry is part of the standard return ticket, together with the Sphinx terrace, the Plateau and the Alpine Sensation. There is no separate desk and no extra charge. The only paid extras at the top are food, shopping and the Snow Fun Park, which sells its own tickets for the zipline, sledging run and ski area.
A constant minus three degrees Celsius, all year. In August, when the monthly mean outside is about plus 1.3 degrees, that makes the ice corridors the coldest part of the day. In February, with an outside mean near minus 12.6 degrees, it is warmer inside than out. A fleece and a jacket are enough for the 15 minutes it takes.
About 15 minutes at a normal pace, including stops for photographs. The Alpine Sensation corridor nearby takes roughly the same again, so the two indoor attractions together account for about half an hour of a visit that officially needs three and a half to four and a half hours in total via the Eiger Express.
Anything with a grippy sole: walking boots, winter boots or trainers with real tread. The floor is ice, it is polished by foot traffic and it slopes in places, so smooth soles and heels make the walk harder than it needs to be. Handrails run along the corridors, and keeping one hand free for them is sensible.
It was cut into the glacier in the 1930s by mountain guides working with hand tools. Because the ice is moving, the corridors are maintained and reshaped over time rather than left as first carved, so what you walk through today is a maintained space inside a glacier rather than a fixed structure.
This is the attraction that bad weather does not touch. The Sphinx terrace and the Plateau depend on the cloud; the ice corridors and the Alpine Sensation look the same whatever the sky is doing. If you arrive to low cloud, do both indoor sections first and give the weather a couple of hours to change.
The route from Interlaken Ost via Grindelwald Terminal and the Eiger Express to Jungfraujoch is barrier-free, and one companion travels free with a wheelchair user. The ice corridors themselves are a narrow ice floor with slopes and handrails, so check with the Jungfrau Railways in advance about access inside the ice.
Minus three degrees inside the glacier, a 250 metre memorial corridor next door and a terrace at 3,571 metres. Compare the routes and the pass fares first.