The valley walls
Sheer rock hundreds of metres high on both sides.
The original uploader was Yesuitus2001 at German Wikipedia. — CC BY-SA 2.5 · chensiyuan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bybbisch94 — CC BY 4.0 · Oleg Yunakov — CC BY-SA 4.0
Interlaken is larger, with the hotels, restaurants, shopping, nightlife and easy access — better for a first visit and for comfort. Lauterbrunnen is smaller, quieter and far more beautiful (you wake to the waterfall and the walls), and closer to the mountain trains, but its options are limited and sell out early. For large families and longer stays: Interlaken. For mountain lovers and photographers: Lauterbrunnen, Wengen or Mürren.
Three days is a sensible minimum: one for the Jungfraujoch or the Schilthorn, one for the valley, its waterfalls and the village of Mürren or Grindelwald, and one for Lakes Thun and Brienz (boats, Thun Castle, Ballenberg). A week would not cover everything. With only one day: Lauterbrunnen plus the Staubbach and Trümmelbach falls gives the best value for the least money, since the high mountain trains are expensive.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
The Lauterbrunnen valley is Switzerland's most famous valley and its most photographed scene: a narrow, deep glacial cleft walled on both sides by sheer rock faces hundreds of metres high, down which **seventy-two waterfalls** fall — among them the Staubbach, dropping 300 metres like a thread of mist directly in front of the village. The name itself means "the loud springs". The village on the floor is wooden houses, a church and green meadows, and from its station every trip in the region branches out: the mountain train to Wengen and on to the Jungfraujoch, the cable car to Grütschalp for Mürren and the Schilthorn, and the valley-floor walk to the underground Trümmelbach Falls. Which is why many people stay here rather than in Interlaken itself. The valley is said to have inspired Tolkien's Rivendell after he visited Switzerland in 1911 — and anyone standing on its floor looking up at the walls and the falls understands why. Entirely free: the valley itself is the sight.
Sheer rock hundreds of metres high on both sides.
300 metres of water turning to mist before the village.
Trains and cable cars to the Jungfraujoch, Mürren and the Schilthorn.
3822 Lauterbrunnen, Bern