The Riddle of the Sphinx

Today is my rest day. I had added an extra day into my schedule thinking I would need a recovery day. I was right! My legs thanked me for taking a rest day.

I considered many options for my rest day. First was to visit the tiny remote medieval village of Soglio. But this turned out to be extremely difficult to get to and back in a single day. The second option was to attend the Yodeling Festival in Andermatt, where Rudy was performing and invited me to attend. This is exactly the type of thing I like to do in a foreign country; a chance to experience directly a cultural event that is primarily for locals, not tourists.

My guide was very helpful and we tried very hard to make this work, but ultimately it just didn't work out. The distances, train schedules, and lack of hotel availability made it nearly impossible. So I decided to visit Jungfraujoch and the lakes at Interlaken instead.

Jungfraujoch is the train station next to the Jungfrau. At an elevation of 11,782 ft., it's the highest train

Sphinx Observatory

station in Europe and called the "Top of Europe". At the Jungfraujoch is an observatory and scientific monitoring station with two telescope domes, one higher than the other. It's commonly called the "Sphinx" because when viewed from a distance the shape is reminiscent of the Great Sphinx in Egypt.

 

 

Sphinx in Egypt

 

This is what Jungfraujoch looked like when it was first built.

 

 They had many ice sculptures inside:

 

 

 

 

 

I was surprised to find they had a single malt scotch which was kept in casks in the mountain.

 

It was actually pretty good!

 Lindt had an exhibit showing how they made chocolate

 

Speaking of the Sphinx, most people are familiar with the ancient Riddle of the Sphinx, 

What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?

But most people are not aware that there was a second riddle from the Sphinx (and possibly a third). The second Riddle is probably more difficult than the first one, Can you solve it?

Two sisters, one gives birth to the other who in turn gives birth to the first. Who are they?