For our visit to the Berner Oberland, we stayed in Wengen but visited Murren, Lauterbrunnen, and Lake Brienz. And we traveled via train, boat, bus, gondola, on foot, and even in the air!
As soon as we stepped out of the car on arrival from France, we were greeted by a fantastic vista of mountains and waterfalls, truly awe-inspiring. Alas, our second view was the train to Wengen pulling out of the station without us, as tried to decrypt the train ticket machine. Ah well, 30 minutes to relax and enjoy the scenery! The next train was completely jam-packed, a consistent experience despite still being “shoulder season” in late May (early enough that many hiking trails were not yet open in the mountains).
The view from our hotel was just as spectacular, looking out over the village to the three peaks – the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. As the story goes, the Eiger (ogre) is eternally trying to reach the Jungfrau (young lady) but is stymied by the Monch (monk). The weather was wonderful, mostly clear with just occasional spells of clouds.
For dinner, we walked through the village to the Baren Hotel restaurant, where we had my favorite meal in the mountains – white and green asparagus with wild garlic gnocchi for me, and Swiss beef entrecote (from Interlaken, close by) for D. We also tried Swiss wine for the first time – a very good 2016 Pinot Noir from Gantenbein; we later discovered that it’s a cult favorite rarely found outside Switzerland, which we unknowingly got at an extremely good price.
Day 2
This morning we bought a 3 day Jungfrau travel pass that covered the trains, gondolas, and buses in the area. After breakfast we hopped onto the train and rode to the top, Kleine Scheidegg, where it was perfectly clear. We could easily see the Sphinx Observatory more than 4,000 feet above on the Jungfraujoch (“Top of Europe”) where James Bond once adventured – you can just see it in the middle of the photo below:
We were so inspired by the scenery that we decided to hike down, despite not having brought hats, sunscreen, water, or a backpack. It wasn’t really a hardship – the path is nicely paved and gently sloping through fields of wildflowers.
As we descended to the grassy lower slopes, I heard the familiar sound of a cuckoo clock… no wait, an actual cuckoo bird! Alas, I couldn’t see it, but it was fun to listen.
Day 3
This morning found us riding on top of a gondola up to Mannlichen – yes, in a genius bit of marketing, you can pay extra to ride on the roof of the gondola in the open air. (Another rather James Bond-esque experience, but thankfully villain-free.) I think it’s worth it to see the scenery unobstructed by windows.
As it was still fairly snowy at the top, the trail from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg was unfortunately closed – I’d love to do that hike in the future.
Instead, we went back to Wengen and caught a series of trains to Interlaken, where we boarded a classic steamer to see Lake Brienz. It was absolutely packed (we didn’t realize it was a Swiss holiday), but we managed to find two seats in the back of the shaded upper deck and were quite comfortable as we enjoyed the gorgeous glacial-blue water and the scenery of little towns and mountains.
We disembarked at the fairytale-like Grandhotel Giessbach, along with most of the rest of the passengers (facepalm emoji), and waited our turn to ride the old wooden funicular up to the hotel. While I’m usually ultra-planned when it comes to meals, I hadn’t booked lunch in time and so we arrived without a reservation – and the place was packed. We found a table on the balcony off the hotel bar, which didn’t serve much food but did have a lovely wine list. More Gantenbein? Yes please, and a glass of schnapps.
Day 4
D planned our activity for this day – paragliding! The “launch site” was in Murren, on the mountain across the valley, so we set off via train to Lauterbrunnen, bus to Stechelberg, and finally two gondolas up to Murren. Thankfully everything is timed so that the connections work smoothly.
We popped into a coffee shop to wait until it was time for paragliding and shared a piece of very good homemade raspberry tart while chatting with the women who ran the shop. I got the recipe for the tart and will try to recreate it when I find berries in the farmers’ market this spring.
Time for paragliding! We hiked a short distance uphill past some cows and got our gear on. Unlike skydiving or bungee jumping (which I would not want to do), paragliding isn’t as scary since you become airborne while close to the ground by running downhill. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed seeing the mountains and valley from a different perspective, though I did get a bit seasick airsick.
I took one more hike around Kleine Scheidegg in the afternoon, and we had dinner at our hotel before settling in for our last night in the mountains.
Bonus Zurich
On our last full day in Switzerland we headed to Zurich. By now we were pretty much pros with the travel down from the mountain – train to Lauterbrunnen, transfer to train to Interlaken. Then transfer to a Deutsche Bahn train to Bern, and finally a Swiss train to Zurich and then a taxi to our hotel. Whew!
The main event in Zurich was lunch at Zunfthaus zur Waag, a guildhouse dating from the 1300s that is now a restaurant known for its schnitzel (D’s favorite, as you may recall from our time in Vienna). Indeed, the schnitzel was excellent and so was the wine. Yes, we had our final bottle of Gantenbein, at the top of the price index now that we were in the city.
A fitting Swiss finale to our trip – visiting chocolate shops (a good find: Max Chocolatier) to fill up my suitcase with delicious things. Merci Vilmal, Switzerland!
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