If you’ve ever wanted to visit the location where J.R.R. Tolkien got his inspiration for Rivendell, then Lauterbrunnen is where it’s at. A year ago, I had no clue where Lauterbrunnen was. Thanks to social media and travel influencers, this beautiful valley was introduced to me in the form of stunning pictures and videos. The more I saw this village and others in the region, the more I knew I had to visit Switzerland. From Lake Thun to Grindelwald Jungfrau, the Bernese Highlands contains the most beautiful part of Switzerland. Keep reading for details on how my family and I spent two days here.
Table of Contents
When To Go
While the Jungfrau mountain resorts are largely known for their winter activities such as skiing, spring and summer showcase a lush, green landscape among snow-capped mountains. However, if you go too early in the spring it may still be snowing and raining. The months of July and August may be better options, but you’d also have more tourists and higher prices in an already expensive country. In my opinion, May would be the perfect time to visit.
Where We Stayed
If you’ve read my post on the ultimate Switzerland itinerary, you already know that Interlaken is the ideal spot to stay due to its central location . Our AirBnb was perfectly located within a five minute walk to the Interlaken West train station and right around the corner from a grocery store. To save money, we ate cereal and fruit for breakfast and cooked a few of our dinners. While it wasn’t the nicest AirBnB I’ve stayed at, the location made up for it.
Grindelwald
Almost immediately after checking into our AirBnb, we headed back out to catch a noon train that would take us to Grindelwald. We wanted to fit in as much as we could in one day since rain was in the forecast for the next few days. After about twenty minutes on the train, we soon learned that part of the railway was under construction, so everyone was required to take a bus the rest of the way. It was somewhat confusing but it all ended up working out okay.
Video of the train ride to Grindelwald
Since our plan was to head to the Grindelwald First, a summit above the actual town of Grindelwald, we needed to walk ten minutes through the village to the cable cars. Luckily, we got a discounted rate for the trip up the mountain.
There are many activities you could do once you reach the top of Grindelwald First, including paragliding, zip-lining, riding in a mountain cart or using a trottibike scooter on the way down. Since we were short on time, we only opted to do the cliff walk.
Wengen
We spent a few hours up on the mountain and then headed back down just in time to catch a train to another small village called Wengen. Since I had done extensive research prior to this trip and had the train schedule on my phone, I knew we had to take a train to Kleine Scheidegg. From there, we had to hop on another train that would take us through the mountains to Wengen. What I didn’t know was that this particular leg was not one hundred percent covered with our Swiss travel pass. Having learned my lessons, I paid the extra 18 Swiss Francs per person and got a scolding from the train conductor. Oops!
Once we arrived in Wengen, the first thing I noticed was how dead it was. Since Wengen is primarily a ski town, all of the stores and restaurants were shut down until the summer tourists roll in. We didn’t let that deter us from our mission: to see the beautiful Lauterbrunnen Valley from above.
To get to the best spot for this view, turn left off the main train station and keep walking until you see a big church. Climb up the steps and once you go through the church, you’ll see the most impressive view of Lauterbrunnen valley.
Tip: If you’re coming to Wengen for this view, make sure it’s during the mid-day to get the best lighting.
Lauterbrunnen
The train from Wengen to Lauterbrunnen is pretty frequent and only 20 minutes, so we had no trouble getting there. Luckily, our Swiss Travel Pass covered this leg of the trip.
Lauterbrunnen is very small and easy to navigate. My favorite blogger recently posted a blog about the best viewpoints in Lauterbrunnen. Rather than describe how I got to each place, I’ll just link her blog here. While I didn’t have time to visit every spot listed, I managed to get a few.
Visiting Lauterbrunnen definitely inspired me to come back and do some hikes through this area. My research showed that there are a few easy hikes from this village to others that would require at least a few hours. Instead, this was the last stop of a long travel day (that began in Lucerne) so I guess I’ll just need to visit again!
Spiez
The next day, we explored the towns by the lake and visited two castles on Lake Thun. Since we got a late start, I knew that we had to time our visit to Spiez so that we could take the ferry across the lake to Oberhofen. The ferry crossing is only a few times a day so keep that in mind if you ever want to repeat this itinerary.
One short, twenty minute ride on the train took us directly to Spiez. Once we exited the train station, it was a short walk to the castle. We explored outside quite a bit, but unfortunately, did not have enough time to make it inside before the ferry.
Oberhofen
We hopped on the ferry and by this point, it was starting to rain. Nevertheless, Lake Thun was gorgeous and I can only imagine how much more pretty it’d be when the weather is nice.
By the time we reached Oberhofen castle, the rain was coming down a little harder but luckily, the castle was right next to the ferry stop. Unfortunately for us, we had a few more weeks until the castle opened for the season. We were still able to roam around the gardens outside.
Iseltwald
I had added Iseltwald to our list when I saw beautiful pictures on Instagram of it. When our itinerary got too full, I tabled it for the ‘if we have time’ category. Since it was still early evening, and because our train conductor recommended to go, we decided to take a bus to this small village. What better way to use our travel pass?
We got off the bus with others and I immediately noticed that there was nobody around. There were tons of apartments, hotels, and hostels, but not a person was in sight. Even the people from our bus seemed to vanish into thin air. We wandered around the village for a bit until the rain really started to come down. At that point, we saw that the ferry was due to arrive soon so we headed back to Interlaken. Even though it was kind of a fruitless mission, I’m still glad we got to see Lake Brienz.
Traveling through the Bernese Highlands allowed me to realized that I definitely want to come back to Switzerland. If and when that happens, I want to do some hikes and be more active. Sometimes travel can be about seeing the next thing or ticking things off a list. Next time, I just want to relish in the beautiful surroundings.
Map
Below is a map of the Bernese highlands and everywhere we visited.
Wonderful travel blog!
Great blog with breathtaking pictures!! Did you hate your Air BnB so much you didn’t want to photograph that? 😉
Haha let’s just say the location was the best part!