Hi friends, welcome back to my Switzerland series! The next morning Jon and I packed our bags and headed to the train station for part one of our three step journey to Wengen. Usually I’d be weary of having to transfer trains a few times, but I can’t say enough good things about Switzerland’s public transportation. All of our train rides this day were covered by our Swiss Half Pass and BO Pass. The first journey was the Lucerne-Interlaken Express and we paid a little extra to reserve seats next to each other. The train has a small electronic board that says if seats are reserved so you don’t have to worry about any potential awkward interactions. Once we were in our seats, we could relax and enjoy the scenery passing by over the next two hours. We saw at least five stunningly blue lakes and beautiful mountain villages as we made our way to Interlaken.
From Interlaken we boarded a thirty-minute train to Lauterbrunnen, and then an eleven-minute train from Lauterbrunnen up to Wengen. The trains were timed perfectly so you had about 3-10 minutes to transfer at each stop before the train left the station. We pack light so we never had any close calls getting onto trains, but if you pack heavy, make sure you’re at the doors with your bags before the train stops. I’d also recommend downloading the user friendly SBB app. It shows all the train and cable car times with about 99% accuracy. As we ascended up the mountain, the views kept getting better.
There are quite a few towns in the Berner Oberland region to stay in, and I had a hard time deciding. Some towns are the picturesque mountain village, but not convenient to get around easily. Others are easy to get around, but lack the small village vibe. We wanted to stay in only one place so Wengen provided the perfect combination of scenery and accessibility. Wengen is a car free mountain town located at 4,000 feet. The population is only 1,300 so it was the complete opposite of life in NYC. In future posts I’ll show the other possible towns to stay in (Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Murren, and Gimmelwald) and my thoughts to help narrow it down for your future trips 🙂 This map below shows the area and different towns. The black boxes are different towns to stay in and the blue are the hikes/mountains we visited.
Jon and I stayed at Hotel Alpenrose and the view from our balcony was stunning! We could see Lauterbrunnen below, Murren across the valley, and the peaks of Junfrau and Shilthorn. Our visit coincided with a heat wave and the hotel didn’t have any fans, so we got pretty hot at night. We opened the windows the first night and we realized at 11pm that a few big flies and massive bee had flown in. It took a while to wind down after our efforts to evict all the unwanted insects. Our breakfast and dinner each day was included in our rate, but the dinners usually left a bit to be desired. I think they tried to make the food too fancy when we would’ve been happier with a simple sausage and bread roll. They also served soup as one of the courses in the heat, so our dinners were pretty sweaty. We never went hungry, but compared to our meals in Germany, we were a little disappointed. The room, location, and cleanliness were all great but the meals were the only thing we didn’t love.
I wasn’t sure how many clear days we would have in Wengen (my weather app was unnecessarily pessimistic), so after checking in, Jon and I set out for one of the hikes on my list. We took the cable car from Wengen up to Männlichen (free with our BO pass, otherwise 29CHF each way), and the ride takes about five minutes to ascend 947m. We preferred to stay inside, but for 5CHF more, you can ride on top of the cable car for unobstructed views. I believe this is the only cable car that offers the outdoor experience. You can hike up to Männlichen too, but we never attempted it when we could take the free and easy cable car. The squiggly yellow line was our route for the day.
Once we reached the top, we walked a little over half a mile up to the Royal Walk viewpoint. The hike is quick, but steep. There was nobody up there and we discovered it was because it was infested with flies. We got our picture and headed down pretty quickly. From here you can see Wengen, Interlaken, Gindelwald, Jungfrau, and the Lauterbrunnen Valley below.
The famous peaks from left to right are Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.
It doesn’t get much more Swiss than this!
Jon and I then walked the Panorama Trail from Männlichen to Kleine Scheidegg and it was a very easy three-mile walk with incredible views. The hardest part of the hike was not stopping every second to take a picture. We had a front row view of Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau as we followed the trail.
We stopped on the most scenic bench to take it all in. It’s hard to believe such a beautiful and peaceful place exists! This bench overlooks Grindelwald below.
We finished the hike in Kleine Scheidegg and took in the views overlooking Jungfrau while waiting for our train. Once aboard it took twenty-five minutes to descend to Wengen (free with our BO pass, originally 31CFH). We loved the Panorama Trail and think it’s a must if you’re in the region. I’m glad we did this on our first day because it was a great introduction to the area. It’s also perfect for all levels and so enjoyable! Our time in the mountains was off to a great start and we were excited to explore the Lauterbrunnen Valley the following day.
