Epic New Year train journey rides Europe’s highest railway and winds through 5 countries

If you had an unlimited budget and plenty of time for a winter adventure, this new rail journey might be exactly what you’d dream up. 

The week-long route winds through five European countries, stops at the highest railway station in Europe and includes a stay in a fairytale Swiss village. 

It culminates in a New Year’s Eve gala dinner and a breathtaking excursion on New Year’s Day. 

The Interlaken and the Jungfrau Express at New Year is being offered by train tour company Vacations By Rail.

What’s included in this epic winter rail journey

Vacations By Rail’s seven-day holiday includes accommodation in four star hotels and most meals along the way. 

The trip departs from London, where passengers will board the Eurostar to Brussels. After changing trains in the Belgian capital, passengers continue on to Cologne in Germany. 

Here, there is an overnight stop with dinner.  

The next morning, guests take a train from Germany into Switzerland along the dramatic Rhine Gorge, a 65 km section of the river lined with steep rock faces crowned every now and then by monumental castles. 

The final destination is Interlaken, a resort located in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps beneath the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains.

Guests stay for five nights in the settlement, which stretches along a valley between the emerald-coloured lakes of Thun and Brienz.

A rotating restaurant and mountain railways

During the five days based in Interlaken, guests take day trips into the surrounding mountains, meadows and villages. 

These include a train ride to the Alpine village of Mürren from where a cable car takes you up to the summit of Schilthorn Mountain. 

At the peak, guests visit the 360-degree rotating restaurant Piz Gloria that was a film location for the James Bond movie ‘On Her Majesty's Secret Service’.

There are a further 45 mountain railways and aerial gondolas in the Interlaken area that guests can explore at leisure during the stay. 

On New Year’s Eve, there is a visit to Grindelwald, an Alpine village of snow-dusted chalets, and a special gala dinner in Interlaken in the evening. 

On New Year’s Day, guests take a ride on the Jungfrau Railway, a cogwheel line passing through tunnels beneath the Eiger mountain and leading to Europe's highest station at 3,454 metres above sea level. 

From the dizzying heights of Jungfraujoch station, passengers continue on to Basel and then Paris, where travellers take their rail journey on the Eurostar back to London.

The trip begins on 27 or 28 December and ends on 2 or 3 January. Tickets cost €2,400, which includes all rail journeys, six nights in hotel accommodation, a tour escort, local guides and 11 meals.