Switzerland: The Mountains

Gimmelwald & Berner Oberland

Ahhhhhh...the mountains. Our favorite part of the trip and now one of our favorite places in Europe that we've visited!  Be sure to check out the rest of our pictures from the mountains here.  And Switzerland, city edition here.

Matterhorn

Berner Oberland (Gimmelwald)

This area is better known by its touristy city at the bottom of mountains--Interlaken. We spent zero time there and instead spent 3 blissful, relaxing days up in the mountains. 

It takes a little bit of patience changing to trains/gondolas/ski lifts to get where you need to be, but it is so worth it!  A side note--if you ever go to Switzerland I highly recommend running the numbers on a Swiss Pass. For us, we each saved the equivalent of $300 from buying all tickets individually, and it was nice not to have to worry about which train to catch. We just showed the pass and could get on any train, bus, boat, etc. In Berner Oberland, the Swiss Pass is only good to certain cities, but then you get 50% off most other trains and lifts.

We arrived mid Monday morning to the valley town of Lauterbrunnen and upon seeing sunshine and blue skies we excitedly stuffed our bags in a locker and headed up for a hike.  From Mannlichen we hiked to a overlook and then began a highly recommended, fairly easy hike to see the 3 peaks in the region (Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch).  I'll leave the pictures to do the explaining of how breathtaking this hike and picnic location was!
After a fabulous day hiking we decided it was time to check into our place and relax. Gimmelwald is only accessible by gondola, and we chose it based on Rick Steves recommendation. It's the only town in the area that is not developed, which means there's very few places to stay, 2 restaurants, and no souvenir shops besides the honesty shop. (which is just like it sounds...leave your money for what you take, honors system!)

Rick Steves reports that locals say "If heaven isn't what it's cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald."  And after three nights, we couldn't agree more. In fact, Nick thinks the saying should be "If heavens full, just send me to Gimmelwald."

We stayed at Pension Gimmelwald, which was the absolute perfect place for us to stay. It's a semi hostel, but we had our own huge room with sink and views of mountains. The shower and toilet were shared, but everyone staying here was extremely chill and laid back (with the exception of the annoying American family for a night). There's a restaurant downstairs with an amazing terrace overlooking the mountains. Everything feels cozy and cabin-like, and the workers/owners felt like family. They remembered us daily and gave us tips on things in the area whenever possible. Can you tell we were sad to leave?

Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early because we knew it might be our only sunny day while we were there. We took the cable cars 30 min up to the peak at Schlithorn. (Most people do the Jungfrau train to the peak on the other side of the valley, but we opted not to do this.). We are so glad we made the choice of Schlithorn; not only is it MUCH more affordable, but also less touristy. 

Probably the most touristy thing we did the entire time in Berner Oberland was eat breakfast at the rotating restaurant on the top of Schilthorn. But, since we were on the first cable car up we beat the crowds and had a yummy breakfast buffet with some gorgeous views!!

Oh yeah, an old James Bond was filmed here, so I had to pretend to be him ;)

We decided to hike the majority of the way down. It was a pretty intense hike, including crossing a mini waterfall, walking along a ridge, and climbing to a look out point. But everywhere we looked the views were incredibly breathtaking.

About 4 and half hours later and a mile of elevation lower, we were so excited to finally see Gimmelwald again!

Wednesday was pretty cloudy and rainy, so we did an easy valley hike (our legs appreciated this a lot!) with a plan to visit hidden waterfalls. But, when we realized this was a paying waterfall that Swiss pass didn't cover, we just hiked to Lauterbrunnen instead and caught the bus and gondola back to Gimmelwald.

The rest of the day was spent watching the rain from our room, reading, and a quick dip in the hot tub in nearby Murren. So relaxing!

Our nights in Gimmelwald were extremely relaxing, and were typically spent drinking beer, eating delicious food at our restaurant, and admiring the views or watching the storms roll in through the mountains. Can't ask for anything better!
Thursday we had to leave, but seeing rain and clouds made it slightly easier. We made a short little detour at the Open Air Swiss Museum on our way to Zermatt and Matterhorn.

Conclusion: This is Nicks new favorite place in Europe, and it's tied at the top with Cinque Terre for me. We WILL be back...there's still hikes we didn't get to do, an extreme obstacle course Nick thinks he can convince me to do (keep dreaming!), and our friends at Pension Gimmelwald to return to!

Zermatt (Matterhorn)

We arrived Thursday afternoon to clouds and spent about 40 hours waiting to get a glimpse of the Matterhorn.  We were convinced it was a myth until we actually saw it Saturday morning.

Even though it was cloudy for so long, we managed to keep ourselves busy.  We took a walk around the city. And although super touristy, it's very beautiful with all of the flowers on the buildings.  We also visited the Matterhorn museum and learned all about the tragic climb that made Zermatt and Matterhorn so famous.

Friday we went on a cloudy day hike, which turned out to be a fairly difficult hike....lots of altitude change.  The mountains were still pretty, but without Matterhorn, it just wasn't quite the same!

<---------- Do you see it? It's there to the left

Probably the most exciting thing about Zermatt was that our hotel came equipped with a huge kitchen in the basement, so we decided to cook our meals the two nights we were here. Coop, the Swiss grocery store, became our best friend on this trip. We always managed to find one for picnic lunches and sometimes breakfast, but this was the first time we were able to take advantage of it for dinner. It feels kind of nice to know you're paying the same amount for 2 days of all 3 meals for what you'd pay for one meal in a restaurant!
Saturday morning, we finally got to see Matterhorn!  We took an early train and gondola ride up to the top of Rothorn to get some traditional pictures, and then started the hike back down.  We came across a lake with gorgeous views of Matterhorn.  Funny enough, this is where I injured myself the most on all of our hiking...too excited about the views, I guess!
When we got to the last little town before Zermatt, our plan had been to take the train back down in order to catch our train to Lake Geneva.  But, when we got there, we still had an hour and 40 minutes before our train, so we thought we could make it in that time.  Nick decided we should take a "short cut", which started out fine but quickly turned into an off-path/ski slope adventure.  I was not the biggest fan, but we did make it to our train in time! :)

Conclusion: We're glad to we got to the see the Matterhorn once in our lives, but really don't feel a need to return.  After being in Berner Oberland, this just didn't quite compare.  Zermatt was too touristy for us, and although the hikes would've been better if it had been sunny the whole time, it's still hiking for just a glimpse of that one peak.  We loved in Berner Oberland that it was constantly a 360 degree view on all hikes.