Doing Everything but Hiking around Interlaken

Ahh, Interlaken. A stunningly beautiful area where our plans were thrown out the window and yet our days were still packed full of activity. We had planned to hike each of our days there, taking gondolas, trains, and trams up into the lower mountains for views of some of the most famous Alps (the Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau, Wetterhorn, etc.). But, as I mentioned before, it rained each of the days we were in the area, and SNOWED up at our hiking locations. Somehow, in planning our trip to Switzerland in August, we hadn’t packed for snow hiking. Plus, the views of the Alps were obscured each day by thick cloud cover. So we skipped the hikes, thought wistfully of a future trip back to Interlaken, and found a million other fun ways to spend the days.

After our day hike at Schynige Platte, we went and checked into our Airbnb in the small town of Ringgenberg, right next to Interlaken. Ringgenberg looks like a very classic Swiss village, filled with chalet-style houses, and Scott had found us a perfect Swiss chalet on the shore of Lake Brienz — we could sit in a cozy living room on rainy afternoons/evenings and look out at turquoise water and cloud-specked mountains (we could even see part of the ridge line we had hiked at Schynige Platte). The Airbnb was managed by a couple who also ran a hotel right across the street, so we got to walk over for delightful Swiss breakfast each morning. Ringgenberg was also very pleasantly NOT Interlaken downtown, which we discovered on our first evening is quite crowded with tourists and a little too adventure sports focused for us. (But ask us about our dinner there and the horse carriage incident.)

Our first full day in the Interlaken area, we decided on a Schloss day. There were several castles around the two lakes, and we headed up towards Lake Thun to go to Schloss Oberhofen, stopped by and walked around Schloss Hünegg, and then went to Thun to walk around the old town and Schloss Thun. It was VERY wet and rainy for the first half of the day, but as we walked around Thun the rain stopped, the clouds lifted just a bit, and the views of the lower mountains rising into the clouds were beautiful.

“Hmm,” we thought. “The weather might not be this nice again while we’re here… maybe we should drive up to see some of the beautiful valleys while we can.” So off we went to Lauterbrunnen Valley, a glacially formed valley that is essentially the Yosemite of Switzerland ;) Lauterbrunnen Valley claims to have more than 70 waterfalls, and we counted 15-18 from one viewpoint (trying to see if we could beat the number we’d seen at one time in the Clinton Valley on the Milford Track). There are several pretty large and impressive ones, including Staubbach Falls, the landmark of the valley.

After passing through the town of Lauterbrunnen and checking out Staubbach Falls, we kept driving up towards Trümmelbachfälle, but arrived only 5 minutes after they had closed. “How can they close a waterfall??” We kept driving up the valley and stopped to see if a tram heading up into the mountains was still running. We hadn’t missed the last ride, but the ticket sales person kindly told us it wasn’t worth it, pointing to a webcam of the top, fully enclosed in white clouds. So we kept driving up the valley to where the road ended, walked around a bit, and enjoyed a scenic beer and dinner at an old, traditional Swiss restaurant.

The next day we headed back to Trümmelbachfälle, discovering that it was possible to close the waterfall because it’s accessed by an in-mountain elevator and a series of paths and tunnels carved into the rock. The falls are fed by runoff from the glaciers on the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau, and are mostly inside the mountain in stunning channels the water has carved in the rock. The photos below don’t quite convey the experience, but they’re a start.

Next, we wanted to head over to a second valley in the Interlaken area, to the town of Grindelwald. It’s mostly an interesting place for starting hikes into the mountains, or in the winter for skiing, but we figured we should at least check it out while we were there. We drove through and stopped for an early lunch at a very cute cafe, warming up with hot drinks, soup, and finishing with an AMAZING fresh apricot cake.

We headed back to Ringgenberg and got on a boat for a trip around Lake Brienz. The boat stopped at a few small little villages on the way to the other end of the lake, where we got out and walked around the town of Brienz.

Whew, the end. Well, except for these photos and videos, which you really shouldn’t miss.

On our way up towards Schloss Oberhofen and Thun, we got to drive through some pretty fun sections of road along Lake Thun.

The garden next to Schloss Oberhofen had a small playground, where I found what I imagine to be the perfect playground apparatus(?) for Scott. I insisted he try it despite the rain.

There are some caves you can visit near Interlaken, right along Lake Thun. We weren’t that interested in seeing them, but when we drove by we saw the crazy waterfall and decided to stop just to take a look at that:

Here’s one of the 10 falls at Trümmelbachfälle.

In Brienz, we walked along their lakeshore path and discovered all kinds of games and entertainment:

After these lovely few days around Interlaken we headed to Luzern to meet up with Claire!