Our day 2 at Switzerland was for Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen valley. Hubby had gone on an early morning paragliding, and we started our Interlaken tour with Kursaal Garden, which has Yash Chopra statue. Kursaal Garden was 2mins walk from Hotel Harder Minerva where we stayed. Yash Chopra is named as Ambassador of Interlaken, with numerous scenes of his movies shot in the region, which attracts many Indians to visit Interlaken. Kursaal Garden is also known for the manicured flower beds, Kursaal Brunnen Fountain and the Congress Center and Casino. Most of the lanes were still getting ready with the floral plant arrangements for the upcoming touristry summer season.
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| Yash Chopra statue at Kursaal Garden, Interlaken |
Interlaken Ost(East), train station is the primary departure point for all the mountain trains, while trains to rest of Swiss have connectivity from both Interlaken Ost and Interlaken West. Interlaken Ost station is around 15mins walk from Kursaal Garden and we took our train to Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen, an Alpine village, in the glacier carved U-shaped valley, also known as the Land of 72 Waterfalls, with many springs and falls. While there are not many waterfalls during summer, Staubbach Falls is mostly active throughout the year, which is also the highest free-falling waterfalls of Europe falling from 297meters. Lauterbrunnen was too touristry even during shoulder period, while a few minutes trek gave a calm serene views off the crowd. Lauterbrunnen is also the gateway to car-free mountain villages Wengen, Murren and Gimmelwald on either side of the valley.
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| Staubbach Falls |
After wandering around for few hours, we walked to Lauterbrunnen bus station and took our bus to Stechelberg Schilthornbahn station. Stechelberg is known for the cable car to Schilthorn mountain peak, where James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969 was shot at the iconic Piz Gloria revolving restaurant. The Schilthorn cable car goes via Murren with a change over cabin at Gimmelwald. We thought of getting off at Gimmelwald and exploring the Alpine mountain peak village instead of going to too touristry Schilthorn. The village was all for ourselves, and the trek through the village was beyond joy. The village also houses Europe's first honesty shop entirely unattended, self service village store, were you pick up the things and drop your cash with a note into the postbox or just pay online. This tiny village also offers the views of famous Jungfrau peak. The trek was just too good to be real, with the purest airs in a car free village. We still wondered how do those people even manage just on the cable car transportation which only operates through the day, with no other connectivity, apart from trekking down to Lauterbrunnen. While taking the cable car down, we were accompanied by a local who was just going down through the cable car to take her pet for a walk and took back the next cable car up home.
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| Gimmelwald village |
We took our bus back to from Stechelberg Schilthornbahn station to Lauterbrunnen and then train to Wengen. Wengen is the village on the opposite mountain of the valley, which can be reached by train. It was around 6:30 in the evening by then, we took the train to Wengen, enjoyed valley from the other peak for an hour before we took the train back to Lauterbrunnen and then to Interlaken Ost.
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| As the valley village disappears, as you move up to Wengen |
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| Wilderswil just an empty station on the Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen route |
