My husband and I will be traveling from Strasbourg to Interlaken in early September. We already have our hotel booked in Interlaken so I'm really in need of places to spend our time. One day will definitely be spent doing the whole Jungfrau train trip. We'll have car. We're on a meal plan so we don't even need restaurants!

Do we really need to buy tickets for the Jungfrau excursion ahead of time? Rather than be locked into a specific day, I'd like to do it based on weather when we get there. If we happen to have a bad day weather-wise, I'd prefer to choose another day.

My husband is an avid photographer, I'm wondering what villages are interesting from that perspective? I know, I'm sure all of Switzerland is one huge postcard but we only have 3 1/2 days. I'm assuming we'll go back. Some of the villages that keep getting mentioned are Wengen, Murren, Grindelwald. What else am I missing?

Since we have a car should we venture to Bern or Lucerne? We're not looking to spend a day hiking or biking...just general sightseeing.

Thank you!!

If you have picture perfect weather, you'll find yourself heading up to the mountains. You'll find other posters who can give you much more detailed things to do.

If it's raining or foggy, go to
1)Ballenberg: an open air museum before the Brunig pass
2) Bern or Lucerne for shopping or just walking around.
3) Thun
4) Brienz for wood carving

Thanks Schuler--I appreciate the pointers to rainy day stuff! Great info.

Now I'm hoping others will have feedback on things to do on those picture perfect days!

I think a trip to Spiez is lovely -- and it's about 20 minutes away from Interlaken. At Spiez, you can catch a boat for a tour of Lake Thun. Get off where you please. If I'm not mistaken, the ferry will take you to Thun itself, so that would be an extremely pleasant way to get there.

Here's a photo of Spiez

http://tinyurl.com/l4fw9

Author: Budman
Date: 06/19/2006, 09:45 pm
Someone within the past 1/2 hour posted a question about staying in Interlaken for 3-4 days and asked if they had to purchase their Jungfrau ticket in advance.

I posted a response, and can't seem to find the original post or my response. The site went crazy.
Well, here's my response:

The Jungfraujoch tickets can be purchased the day you wish to go. They are pricy.

Take the train from Grund. It's off to the right before you enter into Grindelwald. You'll save a couple of SFr's, and it's closer than Grindelwald, since you will be traveling from Interlaken.

It's pretty pricy. It was 149 SFr for the round trip. You take the first train to Kleine Scheidegg, then transfer to the Jungfraubahn to the Top.

We had the Half Fare card, so the entire trip costs us 149 Sfr for the both of us. If you have any other type of Swiss card/pass, it will cost you 50 Sfr from Kleine Scheidegg to the top.

We also had a car, so you might want to look into the 1/2 fare card. It cost 99 SFr, so once you spend 198 Sfr, you hit the break-even point. You are 3/4 of the way with the Jungfraujoch trip. That with a couple of boat trips, ride up Harder Kulm, trips to Murren & Wengen, it might be worth the cost.