Day trips from Grindelwald
 

We're staying in Grindelwald for 6 days in June, as part of our first visit to Switzerland. We hope to spend most of our time hiking, but would also like to do some wider day trips to nearby towns, possibly by car as we will have one with us. Lucerne is already on our itinerary: is Bern also worth a one-day visit, or are there other destinations we should consider?

All depends on your interests.

Berne has a well preserved medieval city center with a fine gothic cathedral, 2 rope railways (1 from the Parliament building down to the Aar river (2 minute's journey) and another one to Mount Gurten (views, kids's fund park) as well as tons of fine museums, like
Albert Einstein, History, Natural History, Communication, Alpine M, Art, Paul Klee.......

There are 3 castles on Lake Thun: Oberhofen https://www.schlossoberhofen.ch/en/schloss/das-schloss, Spiez, Thun
Wocher panorama at Thun http://www.kunstmuseumthun.ch/en/thu...ular-painting/
St. Beatus Caves on Lake Thun
Ballenberg Museum close to Brienz https://www.ballenberg.ch/en/
steepest rope railway line of the world, Trift Bridge, Aar Gorge Excursion tips | Grimselwelt
Emmental Erlebnisse, Gastronomie, Veranstaltungen, Unterkünfte [EN] - Emmentaler Schaukäserei
medieval city of Murten and Roman theatre of Avenches nearby Biel/Bienne Seeland | Discoveries
etc. etc......

Where are you going with the car? If just to this area and around consider trains instead - check www.swisstravelsystem.com for lots on trains and also BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. All the places near Grindelwald are short train or boat or gondola rides - cars are useless in cities. Anyway unless you have a wider range itinerary in which cars may be very nice consider public transit in Grindelwald/Jungfrau region.

I thought Bern well worth close to 2 full days -- it really depends on what interests your. Do you have a copy of the Michelin Green Guide? I think it would prove very helpful.

Thank you for this more than generous reply, neckervd: we look forward to following up at least some of your suggestions!

Thank you, kja and PalenQ: much appreciated!

We took the following day trips from Grindelwald and teccend all of them:
The Jungfrau, Lauterbrunnen, Murren, Wengen, Lake Thun and it’s towns. We loved staying in Grindelwald, enjoy.

For Lucerne be sure to drive up and over the Brunig Pass route and not the autoroute route via Spiez and Thun (for autoroutes you also need to buy a vignette to use them).

Great advice! Thanks again to everyone.