Switzerland - Interlaken (Part 1) 🇨🇭

Lucerne to Interlaken

Our drive from Lucerne to Interlaken was a short hour and 10 minutes. We were able to take our time and stop to admire a couple of alpine lakes along the way, Lungernersee and Brienzersee (Lake Brienz). The pass between these two lakes is pretty impressive, taking us above the cloud level that day and then opening up to some sheer drops into the deep valley east of Lake Brienz. Right in the center of our view was the 200M waterfall Oltschibachfall. The cool part is that to get to the base of this waterfall you cross an airfield that has traffic lights indicating when you can pass. If you've ever seen the airport near Gibraltar, it's kind of like this but much less busy.

The hike to the fall was nice and the weather was perfect. We got to the base of the fall and the mist coming off of it probably dropped the temperature a good 10 degrees.

Lauterbrunnen

After the short hike to Oltschibachfall, we drove to Interlaken. Since we knew we couldn't check-in right away we planned to head up the valley towards the "three sisters", the three prominent peaks overlooking Interlaken (the Eiger, Mönch and the Jungfrau). You'll see a lot more of these in the coming pictures.

Our first stop was Lauterbrunnen. This felt to me like the Swiss alpine village I'd always had in my mind. It's a small village and despite the number of tourist still has its Swiss alpine charm. The chalets here are in amazing condition considering their age and harsh climate conditions. Lauterbrunnen’s standout feature is the presence of Staubbach waterfall which drops 297M into the valley.

We, of course, had to do the "tourist" thing and hike up to the base of the falls and then to a strange and questionably safe hike behind the falls. Well if you've never seen the back of water (everyone who's been on the Disney jungle cruise has)... it's not that impressive. In the case of Staubbach, the water almost vaporizes by the time it hit the base of the falls so there's not much to see on that account. The views of the rest of the valley were beautiful despite some annoying fellow tourist (last pic) that didn't seem to have any manners. Overall, it was a good hike and worth it.

Our morning hikes helped us build up an appetite and it was time for some Swiss street food. We found a vendor selling what they called a Swiss "Corndog". Intrigued, we decided to get a couple. Cathy's was raclette cheese, battered, deep fried and covered with a sauce. I opted for the sausage variety and mine was battered with potatoes and also covered with a sauce. Of course, both of these were served on a stick. We liked both of them and fortunately they filled us up and got us ready for the remainder of the day.

From Lauterbrunnen, we headed further up the valley. While you can't see it from any of our valley pictures, there are small villages upon the sides of the valley primarily accessible only by cable car or lift. Can you imagine living in a place where everything comes in and out on a cable car?

Unfortunately, we didn't get much further as we arrived close to the base of the Jungfrau and the end of the valley went pretty much straight up. We stopped for a bit to watch the paragliders do some amazing tricks and glide peacefully on the thermals. It sure gave me the itch to go paragliding.

Trümmelbachfälle

On the way out of the valley we decided to stop off and check out Trümmelbach Falls. Having had a great gorge experience in Mittenwald we had low expectations. Fortunately, it was so much more than we thought it would be. First it starts out with a lift deep inside the mountain that lifts you to up to the top part of the falls at an incline of 104%. This lift was initially built in 1913 and then replaced in 1964 (but the equipment looked like it was from 1913). It seemed a bit sketchy but fun (sorry for the horrible glare).

The gorge was incredible. It was super cool to see how it had been carved over centuries and you could physically feel the force of the water flowing through it. I have to admit it was a nice change in temperature too as it was at least 15 degrees cooler in these caves then it was in the valley. We enjoyed numerous view platforms and opportunities to appreciate this incredible place. As we exited the gorge we were still several hundred meters above the valley floor and that afforded us some great additional views of the valley.

Here’s a brief summary video of the gorge if you are interested.

Our Accommodations

It was time to head to our accommodations. The place we had booked was described as an ‘eco lodge’. When we showed up, we were essentially in a tiny house that was inside of an RV park. All those years of RV travel helped prepare us for smaller living. I think the coach is a lot roomier than this place but it was actually laid out pretty well as long as you didn’t leave anything laying around. The ‘eco lodge’ had a nice little deck where we enjoyed morning coffee and evening meals, great views of the three sisters and watching the hundreds of paragliders. It was also pretty cool to fall asleep and wake up to the views of the mountains. The only complaint was the lack of A/C. It was unseasonably hot when we were there and it was sometimes difficult to cool the place down. Fortunately, we’d open it up around 3-4pm and it would cool down enough by 7pm to close it up and enjoy the night.

We also got to see what camping (or RV’ing if you’d call it that) was like in Switzerland. After seeing Swiss RV life I feel pretty fortunate in most of the sites we’ve been in the US. In this park, you pretty much park on grass, with about 8 ft to the right side of your camper, no services (electricity, sewer or water) and your neighbor is right on top of you. The “campers” didn’t seem to mind. Yup, now I know we’ve been a bit spoiled over the last couple of years.

Like the U.S., RV’ing is a thing here. We were here during a Swiss holiday but the person that checked us in said it’s generally fully over the summer.

Here are some pics of our place. Check out the reflection in the window of the first pic. Cool huh?

Schynige Platte

We were eager to get out and take in some nice alpine hiking. Schynige Platte is the mountain range between Lake Brienz and the valley we were previously in with Laterbrunnen and the other sites I mentioned above. The area is also known as the “Top of the Swiss Tradition” and is considered one of the most beautiful high altitude hikes in Switzerland. You reach it via one of the highest mountain railways in Switzerland that was built back in 1893. You take the cog railwayup to the terminus and then use the station as a jumping off point for several great hikes along the ridge line and to various mountain peaks in the range. It was great to start at about 7000’ feet and hike from there vs spending our energy climbing and climbing before we even got to see anything.

We jumped on the first train of the day to get ahead of the crowds. The train ride up takes about 30 minutes and it’s no long before the trains climbling an impressive grade and offering amazing views of Lake Brienz. We enjoyed seeing the alpine farms and watching the paragliders get off at a station and head over to his launch point about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. It was also great to start our hikes when the temps were a good 15-20 degrees cooler than they were in Interlaken given how warm the days had been.

We decided to do a loop hike that lead us from the restaurant out to the ridge line and then heading east toward the peaks in the range. We started off with some goofing posing in the picture frame. I think the three sisters stole the show.

Overall the hike was great. Not very challenging but it provided new and amazing views every couple of hundred meters. You’ll be glad to know that I once again saved you from the thousands of pictures that we took up here so the gallery above and below represent just a small taste of our experience.

As we got further out on the trail, I was itchin to get the drone out. I could imagine some amazing shots along the ridgeline and also a few super cool ones around two prominent points we hiked around. Alas, I was nervous about it. We were right on the edge of a restricted zone and I kept seeing multiple helicopters close to the ridge line that just made me nervous enough to leave it in the backpack. I was trying to be a responsible drone owner. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried a quick flight as the footage would have been amazing.

We enjoyed our packed lunch in the middle of a rock field a couple of dozen meters off the trail. We enjoyed soaking up the sun while eating our very swiss lunch (yes, there was Swiss cheese), watching the marmots play and soaking in the amazing views.

We capped off our hike with a beer on the restaurant patio where we enjoyed more views of the three sisters and a bit of people watching.

I think I can safely say this is probably one of the best hikes that I’ve been on. If you are ever anywhere close to this area, try to make some time in your itinerary to hike in this area. You won’t regret it!