sonams

i am planning to travel to paris and switzerland in the last week of september with my husband, my in-laws, and 2 kids. arriving and departing from Basel. Excluding the travel days, we have three full days in switzerland. here's a rough iterinary: Day 1: to jungfraujoch. Via lauterbrunnen on way up, and via grimmelwald on way down. Day 2: day trip to lucerne. Day 3: undecided!!! Questions: 1) Need help with the third day!!! I was thinking of doing something close to interlaken- what are the best options i have? we are not too interested in museums, and one mountain top is enough for us! doing a boat ride in lucerne for sure, so does it make sense to go on the thun lake as well? 2) which will be the best base for us? we need a serviced appartment, but i didnt find too many options in interlaken. what is the next best choice? easy accessibility to different directions is the main criteria. is wilderswill a good choice? or lauterbrunnen? 3) Does it get very chilly at that time of the year?

Dukey1

I'm sorry but to me your post is somewhat confusing.

Are you saying you are going to travel to Basel from Paris and spend three days there doing day trips further into Switzerland before returning to Paris or what?

You can certainly do a daytrip to the Jungfrau but why not simply go there and stay overnight and then go on to Lucern the next day and stay overnight again?

If you don't want to pack and unpack and do these as day trips that's OK..but you will need to leave EARLY if you are going to do the Jungfrau area in one day.

Improviser

First, what makes you think day 1 will be a good day to visit Jungfraujoch? There is no point in going up if it is in clouds. This is a common mistake people make. Assuming they can schedule a day and the weather will cooperate.

So first advice is to leave what day you will go up open and check with the local tourist office in the morning before deciding what to do for each day. They will be able to tell you, 'yes' or 'no' for Jungfraujoch.

Second, one of the best ways to get a feel for Switzerland's culture and past in one day is a visit to the Ballenberg Open Air Museum. It usually interests both adults and kids.
http://ballenberg.ch/en/Welcome

For where to stay, your requirement for an apartment for 6 people will be the limiting factor I think. Wilderswill, Lauterbrunnen or Wengen would all be OK. I would avoid Interlaken itself. It's just not as nice a choice in my opinion.

Dukey1

Look, what makes you think that the day you do an open air museum the sun will be out and it won't be raining?

Going up to the Jungfrau is not all about the views from the top. The views getting there are spectacular as well.

nytraveler

Jungfrau in the rain/clouds is not an option. We waited in Interlaken for 3 days before there was one with decent weather up the mountains (although it was fine in the valley).

And you can easily do Ballenberg in the rain - you won;t melt - but there's no point in ascending a mountain when you can;t see your hand in front of your face. Or any view from the lookouts on the way up.

sonams

i guess i should have been more clear! i want to base myself in one place only...so if i choose lauterbrunnen, i arrive there from paris via basel. the next three days i stay on at the same appartment. return flight from basel mulhouse. i had read in this forum that the weather in jungfraujoch could be quite tricky, so if i get good weather the first day itself, we go up there. else we switch to plan b-lucerne. so in effect we r keeping 3 days in hand for jungfraujoch. and if the weather doesnt smile upon us even then, then well! i guess better luck next time! thanks for the suggestion for ballenberg. what else could be options for us?

MiamiBeachMomma

We just left Switzerland and really enjoyed staying in Grindelwald. We are a family of 4. We stayed in the apartment across from the Gletchergarten hotel and we were very comfy!
We spent day 1 going up Jungfrau- we were lucky as the weather was spectacular! We enjoyed sledding up top as well, although we shouldn't have stayed as long as we did bc the kids have major altitide sickness.
Day 2 we took a gondola up to the first station and then hiked around and down to Bort where we rented trottibikes (it's a scooter with bike wheels) and rode back to grindelwald. My 10 year old loved it! (Actually we all did)
Day 3 we took the train over to Laterbruen and visited Trummelbach falls, and them went up to Murren.
We left Grindelwald and spent 2 nights in Lucerne. If I had to choose between Grindelwald and Lucerne...grindelwald would win hands down!!

PRLCH

We stayed in Lauterbrunnen some years ago at Chalet Barli. They have 2 "apartments" in the chalet. Your in-laws could take one and you could take the other. http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p19719#summary
Like MiamiBeachMomma, we had an amazing time. We stayed a week and had a car - I would say a car is essential for Chalte Barli. Went up Jungfrau on first fine day. Trummelbach falls very close by. Riding cable cars to mountain villages can fill plenty of time. Can even ride cable car up to some places and walk down. Lucerne is easily doable from there as is Ballenberg Openair Museum.

sonams

thanks miamibeachmomma and PRLCH for your inputs. miamibeachmomma, could u pls share info on the apartment? maybe a link or something?

indy_dad

photos and comments from our stay in Wengen (would apply to Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald equally well)

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-oberland.cfm

Improviser

The point Dukey is that you do the activity that suits the day, not schedule them ahead of time. I would have thought that was clear to most people of even average intelligence.

MiamiBeachMomma

http://www.hotel-gletschergarten.ch/

Email Gabriela. She can tell u about the apartments and availability. We ate breakfast in the hotel every morning and booked our exercursions with the hotel. They owners even picked us up and dropped us off at the train station. We didn't have a car. We bought the Swiss pass and got the family card for our kids free. Made traveling around very easy!