The most beautiful country in the world?
Switzerland might be the most beautiful place we’ve ever traveled. Switzerland really is perfect. It’s stunningly beautiful, impeccably clean and the more efficient transportation. We spent a week in Switzerland traveling round trip from Zurich. We took so many pictures – I’ve got many more to share if you want to see. I’ll try not to overload you too much! We did take one day to travel into Austria and Lichtenstein because we were so close – that took place the first day after Zurich. Check out those pages to see what we got up to there!
Full vlog here:
Our itinerary went like this:
- Day 1 – Zurich
- Day 2 – Austria and Lichtenstein then tiny home in Flums
- Day 3 – Lucerne and travel to Wengen
- Day 4 – Murren, Gimmelwald, Lauterbrunnen and Mannlichen
- Day 5 – Grindewald and Phingstegg
- Day 6 – Spiez, Thun, St Beatus Caves
- Day 7 – Lake Brienz, Giessbach Falls, Harder Klum
- Day 8 – Bern and Zurich
Day 1 – Zurich
We arrived at 9am or so, picked up our rental and made our first drive to the Lindt home of chocolate. We didn’t realize you needed to buy timed tickets, oops, so we ended up having some extra time to wait before our time and enjoyed the small café on site.
We then stored our bags at our hotel – Wellenberg, which was in an amazing location on a great square. We walked around town for a bit, seeing Lindenhof park, down Augustinergasse, across some of the bridges and to see Grossmunster church. For dinner, we got fondue right by our hotel at Swiss Chuchi which was great. It had a big line later in the evening, but since we kind of skipped lunch, we ate early. We got a cheese pide for the kids from a Turkish restaurant next door after we had our nice dinner.
Day 2 – Austria and Lichtenstein then tiny home in Flums
After enjoying a nice breakfast at our hotel, we took off towards 2 new countries today. I’ll describe that in those pages – Austria and Lichtenstein.
We ended our day at a wonderful tiny home airbnb. After some interesting navigation to get there, and getting lost a few times, we made it. It was on the hillside of Flums and had amazing views and was so peaceful.
Day 3 – Lucerne and travel to Wengen
When we woke up, we drove to the Zurich airport and dropped off our rental then hopped on the train to Lucerne. This was about the same amount of driving as driving to Lucerne to drop off car, but was a lot cheaper. However, it did mean that we had another 1hr of train travel and made this day kind of long and a bit boring.
We stopped in Lucerne but only briefly to grab a quick lunch from Coop, walk the old town to see the bridge and some of the famous squares, then got back on the train and headed to Wengen. This was a pretty long journey and we didn’t get there until close to 4. Evening was mostly spent grabbing some groceries and getting organized for the week. We thoroughly enjoyed our airbnb with a great deck overlooking the Lauterbrunnen Valley.
Our great airbnb: Wengen Airbnb!
Day 4 – Murren, Gimmelwald, Lauterbrunnen and Mannlichen
This was a great day! We saw so much today! We had planned to go up the mountain and across to Murren, but the gondola was closed. So we changed a bit and it ended up working out great. We started the day by visiting Staubach falls. This was a great decision because there was almost no one there. Throughout the days we saw long lines. It was a pretty steep hike up to the top but was really cool.
After that, we walked a little over a mile, I think, to Trummelbach falls bus station. It was a nice, flat, peaceful walk. We then caught the bus to Stechelberg, took gondola up to Gimmelwald and then another to Murren. From Murren, we grabbed a quick snack at Coop and then saw Allmendubel funicular was open! We went up there and played at the playground for a bit.
Then we hiked downhill from Murren to Gimmelwald which was a stunning hike. Views everywhere. We got some yummy pizza at the mountain hostel at the bottom, and then caught the gondola back down. We waited for the bus to Trummelbach falls near a beautiful river and waterfalls.
At Trummelbach, we took the funicular up (great decision bc its very tall!). We did waterfalls 6-10 which was a lot more stairs even. Amazing and honestly way more exciting than I thought after hearing some of the reviews. We walked all the way back down, but I thought waterfalls 5-1 were not nearly as impressive. And by that time, we had done a ton of walking and stairs, and it was kind of hot, so if I were to do it over again, I’d skip 5-1 and take funicular back down!
Finally, we grabbed the bus then the train back to Wengen. We checked live cams and saw that Mannlichen was clear (this hadn’t happened in days!) so we hustled over there knowing the last cable car down was at 5:10. We made it up there around 3:50 and had about an hour to explore. We did the royal walk which is another super steep hike, but the views were insane. Probably the best views of the whole trip. At one point, a whole cloud rolled in blocking our whole view but then disappeared quickly after. We were so glad we got this done today because it was cloudy and even snowed the next few days! Then ended our day relaxing on our balcony again.
Day 5 – Grindewald and Phingstegg
This morning our adventure started by getting to Grindewald for my husbands scary adventure. We got there via Mannlichen then down cable car to Grindewald. We had some trouble finding the bus that we needed (first time we were really confused with transportation) so it was a bit stressful bc we had a specific time slot we needed to make. Anyway, we found it after asking around a few people. We made it to ‘Outdoor’ headquarters around 10.30 where husband was going to do an 11am Canyon Swing. We had a little extra time so we walked through the canyon to check it out. Myself and kids had to pay $10 each to get access, but it was worth it. Then we watched him jump off a 300ft ledge and swing through canyon 😐 It was super rainy and cold so we didn’t spend too much time walking through the canyon, but we did see the spider thing. Probably would have spent more time if it was warmer. We decided to eat lunch at the café on site, mostly for convenience and we were hungry. But it turned out to be awesome. We got sandwiches that were delicious.
Thankfully after lunch, the weather cleared and it was sunny and warm! We headed over to Phingstegg. The views here were some of our favorites. AND – the kids loved the activities. We chose this over Grindewald First for a few reasons that all ended up exactly correct. Price was way more for First, the activities were a bit scary for one of my kids and they had super long lines. At Phingstegg, there were no lines and way more affordable. We did the flyline and it was so fun. Then the toboggan was also great. Good to know though, if it starts raining, which it did, they shut that down. It was a beautiful up there, not crowded at all. Loved it! It was a highlight for the kids.
Finally, around 3pm or so, we headed back down and were hoping to go up to Eigergletscher but the live cams showed it was super cloudy. So instead just headed back towards Wengen via cable car.
Day 6 – Spiez, Thun, St Beatus Caves
The weather was looking terrible today – very cold and rain 100% of day. We made a change to our plans and decided to try to make the most of a gross day as best we could. We took trains over to Spiez. We planned to visit the castle and made the walk over there. We were able to tour the grounds for free, and decided not to pay to go in. It probably would have been even more beautiful on a sunny day. Spiez was OK but also not the cutest town, so we decided to move on to Thun.
Thun was adorable though. We enjoyed the covered bridge and the beautiful river. We wandered a bit then found another italian restaurant – Ponte di Legno Pizzeria. It was adorable inside, and the food was amazing. After that, we walked up to the Thun castle and toured it. It was only $20 for our family and was really neat. We got all the way to the top and had great views. Amazing to see how old the roof was, still being nearly all original.
Following that, we took the bus to St Beatus Caves. It was still pouring down rain and the waterfall there was insane. They actually closed the caves bc the water was so strong and was splashing onto the path. It was super intense! Instead we could walk just to the very start of the caves, and check out the waterfalls. It was worth the stop even still.
Finally, we headed back towards our home. When we stopped in Lauterbrunnen we decided to get dinner at Food Point Kebap which was great!
Day 7 – Lake Brienz, Giessbach Falls, Harder Klum
In the morning we headed towards Brienz and caught the 10:40 boat to Giessbach. We saw the historic hotel, and walked up to the waterfall where you could go behind it. We determined a better option than the loop hike would be for us to walk to Iseltwald, since we also wanted to see this. This also allowed us not to wait around for the next ferry. The hike was really nice and we were nearly alone the whole time. Pretty views of the lake along the path too (although they were obstructed some of the way). It was a long hike though, taking almost 2 hours and there was a part above a road with traffic noise, but most of the hike was great.
We arrived in Iseltwald and got lunch at Restaurant Dorfpintli which was yummy. Then the kids played at the playground, and we walked to the lake to see the dock. Really adorable town.
We decided to catch the bus back rather than the ferry to save time. Once we got to Interlaken, we headed up to Harder Klum. We did have to wait for a while to catch the funicular. Also it was the scariest one we had been on (for me ha). The views from the top were beautiful though and had been cloudy the rest of the week, so we lucked out. There was a nice playground up there too.
Day 8 – Bern and Zurich
Today we left around 9am to catch the train for the journey back towards Zurich. We decided to make a stop in Bern though and were glad we did. The town is adorable. We walked to the bear pits and enjoyed the beautiful streets, clock tower, river views etc. Very nice. After grabbing some quick lunch we got back on the train towards Zurich. After checking into our hotel we walked along the river and my husband got to jump in and ride the currents down. The diving board area we hoped to visit was closed, but we still enjoyed it. Evening we just had a relaxing night before a super early flight the next day!
