The Untere Gasse square
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painted façades and shutters.
Rectilinium — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rectilinium — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rectilinium — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rectilinium — CC BY-SA 4.0
Unterseen is a small town adjoining Interlaken, separated from it only by the river Aare — and most of Interlaken's visitors never cross the bridge to it, missing **the loveliest historic corner in the region**. Founded in 1279, its old square (Untere Gasse) is ringed by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wooden and stone houses with painted façades and shutters, a church with an old tower, and mills on the river. The irony is that Interlaken itself is not a historic town in the strict sense — it grew in the nineteenth century as a tourist resort around its old monastery, so its streets are hotels, watch shops and souvenirs. Unterseen, by contrast, is a real Swiss town with ordinary daily life, **ten minutes on foot** from the tourist centre. It holds the region's tourism museum (Touristik-Museum), telling how the English and Germans invented Alpine tourism here in the nineteenth century. Free to wander — the best free hour in Interlaken.
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painted façades and shutters.
Old mills and green water between the two towns.
How Europeans invented Alpine tourism here.
Untere Gasse, 3800 Unterseen
Kunsthaus InterlakenA small art gallery in central Interlaken, running temporary exhibitions by Swis8 minutes walk4.3
HöhematteAn open grass meadow lying in the exact centre of Interlaken, between the two ra10 minutes walk4.5
Interlaken Monastery and CastleA group of buildings east of central Interlaken, what remains of an Augustinian 13 minutes walk4.4
HeimwehfluhThe Heimwehfluh is a small hill (669 metres) right on the edge of Interlaken, cl14 minutes walk3.8
Harder Kulm'Top of Interlaken' — the town's house mountain standing directly behind it: a r14 minutes walk4.6Interlaken is expensive, but its best is free: the **Höhematte** — the huge green meadow in the middle of town (protected by law from building) with a direct view of the Jungfrau, where paragliders land all day; the Aare riverside walk; the old town of **Unterseen**; and the Lake Brienz quay at Interlaken Ost. These are enjoyable hours without a single franc, between the expensive mountain trips.