This is an experience I’ve been trying to forget for years. Most certainly the creepiest place in Europe I’ve ever found myself in and I believe in ghosts, I’ve met real predators and seen my fair share of death.
The entire visit left me feeling so disturbed, so unsettled and so sad that I rarely look back on it. The children were small, 4, 10 and 14 and recently they shared their memories of the place which led me here. It seems it had an affect on them too and, like me, they’ve all been having nightmares about it ever since. Even the 4 year old who is now 14.
The day started off innocently enough, just to be transparent I was married at this time, very happily (so I thought) however I’m single now. I will refer to my husband for the sake of the story though.
We were spending the week in Switzerland, Interlaken. My husband and I visited with school twenty years prior and we wanted to show the children what we’d seen. (We were in the same class at school but I dated his best friend. We got together later on).
Eurocamp invited me to review their new caravans (that’s in another article) and we’d bought travel passes for all five of us to explore every corner we could realistically reach.
We Find the Creepiest Place in Europe in Jungfrau
On this day we’d decided to start the day off by climbing a small mountain in Jungfrau (actually took the Jungfrau railway most of they way up – it’s the highest railway in Europe) that had a glass viewing platform and a fibre glass cow at the top. We’d heard the ice cream was delicious and thought it would be a great way to get the endorphins going before we searched for an affordable supermarket for a food shop. The mountain happened to be next to a Lidl. Running out of money, due to the massive expense of food, we were hopeful.
I’ll just interject here to tell you that Lidl let us down. There we are expecting to find food the same price as the UK. Longing to overeat for one night and to gorge on four donuts for a pound, twenty pence croissants, seventy five pence pasta. Of course we love to try the local cuisine but it was so pricey and I didn’t know how to cook it, we were in a caravan after all. Eating out would cost at least £200 for the five of us, and that was just lunch.
The donuts were £3.50 each (compared to 30 pence in the UK). A loaf of bread – £6. A pot of basic jam – £8. We lived on potato rostis and eggs for most of the week! Anyhow I digress, I’m sure, ten year’s later, UK prices look much the same.
There we are on the mountain, actually parallel to it as the glass platform just out for 100 metres or more so you feel like you’re standing in the sky. I loved it. My husband, being afraid of heights, not so much.
He stayed on solid ground trying to stop our youngest from mounting the cow.
In the distance I see a strange building, almost like The Eden Project. I didn’t know this small town had any attractions, but I pull up Google maps and see it’s open to the public. I have to go. Now. It’s categorised as a theme park on Google which sounds ideal. The family agree, let’s go. (I will reveal the name and location soon).
Climbing back down the mountain we head in the direction of the building. It’s a scorching hot day and the streets are eerily quiet. We’re walking through manicured housing estates. Beautiful gardens, well kept facades, modern cars in the driveways. It’s clean and pristine as if every house is a show home. Not one curious cat, stray piece of litter or person anywhere. We assume they must all be at work or inside with some good AC.
The walk takes longer than anticipated. It looked much closer when on the top of the mountain. The children are hungry, tired, hot and fed up. The magic of this elusive theme park is wearing off. Nevertheless I romanticise it. I tell them how much the walk will be worth it (we can’t afford a taxi as we need two). They begrudgingly agree and carry on like the troopers they are.
I promise that once we get there we’ll splurge on slush puppies, ice lollies, burgers and more. The typical theme park food and then, HUGE gates. Not old, not antique, modern chicken wire type gates that are open onto a concrete expanse that is completely… empty.
The building towers above us, but with no windows it’s impossible to see if it’s open or closed. Underneath a huge canopy are a set of doors, I decide to try one. It’s open. The theme park is open!
A Weird Welcome
We are so relieved as we enter the cool lobby. The kids sit down and sigh. Reclaiming their energy before the fun to come. My husband and I go to the desk to buy tickets except there is nobody there. There are cameras everywhere though, recording our every move so we wave at a few hoping someone is watching and they’ll be along to help us soon.
Five minutes pass and we’re not really impatient. There’s a vending machine, we’ve all got a drink, we’re cool and we’re celebrating the fact we came at a quiet time in the day so there’s no queue to get in. It’s a weekday too so we think it may be quiet inside (and outside) too and we won’t have to queue for rides.
Finally a woman arrives. A little older than us, mid forties probably. She’s dressed like an air hostess and her red lipstick is bleeding, into her marionette lines and onto her teeth. I can’t take my eyes off it. She doesn’t speak English but does speak French. We manage to buy tickets for us all. That’s £100 well spent.
High Expectations
We receive a map, of sorts, and see there are rides, a play area, indoors and outdoors, a cinema, a museum, a restaurant, a cafe, amusement park, Segway tours, gardens and much more. We’re very excited. These are all situated in various themed arms that lead of the concentric structure in the middle. One is a pyramid, another looks like a space station. One of our favourite theme parks used to be Watermouth Castle (before it was taken over) and we love anything different, educational and bizarre. Watermouth Castle, unfortunately, took the bizarre a little too mainstream, removing most of its creepy museum exhibits, the robots and the century old amusement arcade machines, but is still a great place to visit. We imagined this to be much the same, a little dusty, maybe but with artefacts we’d never seen before. Maybe some rides we’ve never encountered before (we weren’t expecting rollercoasters), and some cool artefacts to teach the children a little history. We got the latter, the jury is out on the former.
The entire place is spotless. As we enter the circle in the middle we decide we’ll do one lap to check the place out before deciding where to go. We’re all starving but agree on one attraction before a burger. The walls are carpeted like a 1980’s cinema, there is not a speck of dust anywhere. The place feels like it was created decades ago and then just left, but not used, just cleaned. It was a very weird feeling. Like finding your old Atari in the loft. Still in pristine condition but with obvious signs of age, despite it not being left to the elements.
The children are boisterous at first, then they feel the vibe, a heaviness descends, they slow, come closer and walk in a line with us as we trot and observe. We see no one. Not a single soul. There are signs to the buildings spiking off the circuit, doors left open to the outdoors, but when we peek round the corners we find the same desolation. We feel like intruders. It feels wrong to talk.
The Very Odd Cinema
We come across an arm labelled cinema and realise this is the Pyramid. This will be our first stop. As we approach the doors a mature woman greets us. Puts an arm out to stop us entering. “You need tokens to enter.” She swiftly turns and closes the swinging door behind her leaving us wondering if we want to go into the pyramid at all. As we’re at the end of the circle it takes little time to travel back to reception to ask about these tokens.
The tokens cost us another £30. That seems steep. We’ve already paid to get in. It must be good. The signs say the film reveals, in spectacular fashion, the secrets of the Aztecs. We’re all big history buffs so we go in.
The seats are arranged like in a lecture room. We take position right at the back, the highest we can be. We’re surprised when two people, seemingly strangers to each other, enter after us. We’d not seen anyone during our thirty minute lap. One is a woman wearing a hijab, the other a man in his thirties. Both are wearing huge headphones. We soon realise these are to listen to the film. We don’t have any. We’re not concerned, as we’re sure we’ll hear it fine.
A man then appears and stands in the corner underneath two circular screens. We release these must be the viewing screens. Odd shape, but quirky. We like it. A spotlight makes him glow gently, then one of the screens comes to life. The man begins to talk but we can’t hear a word he’s saying despite him wearing a call centre microphone. We realise this may be why we needed headphones. My husband slinks off to ask.
On the first circular screen is a blurry image, it’s not really a film, almost like a very rough run of AI if AI was around in Charlie Chaplin’s time. The quality is awful (you can see for yourself – it was very hard getting this video as no cameras were allowed but I was so in awe I had to record a little just to remind myself later on that it wasn’t all a fever dream). It’s silent, so we assume the narration must be first class. Husband returns with two sets of headphones. I try one on, broken. He tries one on, broken. We give up and just watch the film. We have no clue what’s going on. We’ve entered a parallel universe here. The children are genuinely scared. I try to narrate in a whisper, after all, the others are wearing headphones. I tell them we’re seeing what the Aztecs built, but when it starts to show alien landings I’m lost. I’m then told to be quiet by the woman who greeted us at the door.
We wait fifteen minutes and it comes to an abrupt stop. The other two viewers rise to leave so we do the same.
A Trip to Children’s Paradise
Feeling quite perturbed, we head to the centre of the globe where the cafe is, or Misty Land as it’s called. It looks amazing, a huge indoor play area, even a lazy river with water donuts, lots for the children to do but not one child playing. Are they allowed to play? There are no supervisors and just one member of staff behind the food counter. We order drinks and snacks and I encourage the kids to play. usually, if adults are allowed, my husband and I would join the kids as they play in the soft play areas. It was a workout for us too. We loved it. However we had no way of knowing if it was actually open, let alone suitable for adults. The staff member spoke German and we didn’t.
Side note: I am not one of those people who travel and expect the locals to speak English. I hate the entitlement of that. In Switzerland however, there are many languages spoken, and until you meet someone it’s impossible to know which one it is. While I have GCSEs in Spanish, Latin and French, my husband in French and Latin, I knew little German past Guten Tag.
We decided to sit outside in the shade. It was a scorching hot day in July. There was an outdoor play area too and it didn’t seem like such a liberty to play on it. The whole place was immaculate. Looking back, this part felt like an abandoned Five Nights at Freddie’s. I could cope with that.
Underwater Group VR
Refreshed we vowed to reserve our judgements and went to discover another arm. The next promised underwater adventures and the revelation of ancient secrets. We soon learned this was a huge simulator, again with round windows, (something about the circles in this place), capable of seating more than thirty people. There was no queue. We entered and sat down, and waited. And waited. And waited. Then the two strangers entered, taking seats as far away as each other as possible, one in front and one behind our little group, then the doors closed. A voice filled the cabin. Stay seated, do not leave, we are entering another universe under the sea.
It’s hard for me to describe this bit but please see the video. I actually enjoyed it although I had one eye on the strangers at all times. The images were grainy but the 3D effect was impressive. I love anything underwater, ocean themed, so this is probably why. It lasted a good ten minutes which doesn’t seem like long but the whole narration seemed to be trying to convert us to Christian Scientology. Telling of aliens landing in the ocean, transforming to humans, giving us life. It was a little brainwashy.
We leave then find a section labelled Segway tours. A Quick Look outside shows abandoned Segways, no people, left to the elements like in some type of dystopian universe, grass growing around them. I really want to have a go but everyone is impatient at this point, they want to leave and they don’t want to wait again for a strange attendee to turn up.
Finally we find the amusement arcade, again it’s empty. I’m in love with the giant pin board that reminds me of the executive toys we all played with in the nineties.
I got a little obsessed creating outlines and I think I captured one of my best selfies yet! (I don’t do selfies anymore, my vanity has waned as I’ve aged).
This part was relatively normal however the strange thing about this area was how well lit it was. I’ve not noticed before how dark amusement arcades are, even in the daytime. I guess it’s to make all the different lights pop. Playing on arcades in bright sunlight seemed a little strange. It was hard to see screens, and it made the emptiness feel even more eerie.
As we leave we enter a museum and see this skeleton. It starts to make a little more sense. This would have been handy information to have at the beginning. We learn of the history, the reason for the Jungfrau Park, the previous owners. We learn of their bizarre beliefs (I’ll put a quick factual summary at the end with sources) but we don’t learn why it’s so empty. It’s 3.30pm on a weekday, sure, but it’s not closing time. It’s open to the public. There were plenty of tourists on the JungFrau railway. Why didn’t they come here afterwards? What do they know that we don’t?
The skeleton scares me a little, of course it’s fake but standing right next to it I wonder, did giants really roam the earth when dinosaurs did? Is that how the pyramids were made? Do we descend from aliens? Are we now in a parallel universe, some kind of purgatory that leaves us feeling restless, a bit bored, despite the myriad of activities around us. I can’t wait to leave. We haven’t seen it all but we have seen enough. The children are tired, we’ve no curiosity left for what may lie beyond any more doors, and we really need to find a Lidl so we can binge on cheap pastries and cheese.
For curious people this is well worth a visit but don’t go out of your way as it leaves you with feelings of disappointment. We didn’t feel like we’d enjoyed a successful day out at a park, far from it. We felt thoroughly creeped out. If the place was buzzing, even some music, some more staff, the aroma of food drifting through the circular corridors, it could be great. I was eager to try out the lazy river, the awesome rainbow bright play area, the observatory, yet nothing welcomed us in. Like turning up a house uninvited but the occupants put up with you for a limited time to be polite. We outstayed our welcome as soon as we set foot past the reception.
It could be amazing, and that’s the saddest part of all of this. As someone who works in experiences, branding, marketing and customer service I see the intense potential but it seems they don’t really think it’s worth it anymore.
Creepy now, but will be even creepy in a couple of decades when it inevitably lays abandoned due to lack of income.
I would love to reinvent this place.
The Facts Behind Jungfrau Park
Ok so after leaving I was very curious about the conception, the history and the creation of Jungfrau Park. This is what I managed to find by chatting to locals and searching online.
- It opened as The Mystery Park in 2003 but closed in 2006 due to low turnout and funding
- The creator Erich Von Daniken is more interesting than the park itself. He wrote the book Chariots of the Gods. The book makes many claims of the extra terrestrial influence on many of the world’s wonders, Stonehenge, The Pyramids etc.
- He created the park to have seven pavilions each representing a different mysteries of the world – all with an alien influence
- It opened again in 2009 just for the summer seasons
- The creator had his fair share of controversy from faking entrants to his competition of creating crop circles to entice paranormal investigators to visit to making the mysteries heavily biased towards alien interaction. Something not agreed with the funders.
- It was taken over by a new company in 2009 who created the epic play area in the middle – A Children’s Paradise. They promised investors they would attract 500 visitors per day.
- It has the nickname locally as a Cultural Chernobyl.
Not much is cited from 2009 onwards although reviews still come in today. We visited in 2016.
Jungfrau Park Reviews
Ok so after looking at the reviews I’m even more confused. It seems ALL of them are for the play area in the middle. While they are mostly positive, few are five star, so the stars don’t seem to match the words. Odd. Apparently, we paid more because we wanted to see the science bits. If you just visit A Children’s Paradise you pay only for the children, which is a great incentive. On top of this someone mentioned the cafe now has a good selection of food, all areas are staffed and there’s even a Lindt shop and a watch shop here. We didn’t see it but the new owners are obviously concentrating on their best attraction. There could be so much more done with the extra space though, even if some were hot desks, or pop up shops, so many ideas. Imagine it as a concert venue or a festival base?
Yet the creepiness is still there, all for you to discover. You just need to pay more. If you dare.
The Scary Review Responder
I’ve noticed in the reviews if you say anything negative about the place the new owner gets nasty. Seriously, go look. They even go as far to tell someone to ONLY review the children’s play area and not the rest of the park. How bizarre.
I am not looking forward to the backlash on this! The only one I’ve seen that comes close to this in Devon is Trago Mills.
