Late May - early June Switzerland trip report
 

Just to report in from my recent trip to Switzerland (May 26-June 6). I spent the first 5 days in Locarno - realizing that it was fairly early in the season, thinking that I would go to a "warm" and "sunny" area first in my trip to Switzerland. It turned out to be fairly cool and rainy, although I did have a brillant sunny day in Locarno. I took a boat trip on Lake Maggiore the nice day, cruising up and down the lake, stopping in Italian villages along the way - very pleasant. There are some spectacular little towns on the lake. One cloudy day, I took the funicular from Lugano to San Salvadore (which has incredible views of Lake Lugano), then walked down to Morcote (about 3.5 hours). Frankly, I wasn't impressed with the walk because it was through woods most of the way, so there were very few views. Morcote was very nice, and I took the Post bus back to Lugano, which was a nice 20 minute ride along the lake.

Then, off to Lauterbrunnen, which I think is my favorite place of all that I've visited. While it was rainy and 50 degrees in Locarno, it was snowing big time in the higher elevations in Berner Oberland. Subsequently, many of the high elevation hiking trails were closed due to snow. They had been open the week before. It was ironic, since they had gotten so little snow all winter, that they got such a heavy late snow. There was quite a bit of damage to vegetation - the snow taking out trees with their leaves out. One day I was in Lauterbrunnen it rained hard all day long. I took the opportunity to go to Trummelbach Falls, which was outstanding. I had a couple of beautiful warmer days as well, but my hiking was limited to lower elevations due to the snow. I went to Kandersteg one day, which seemed to be a charming little town. It was a cold ride up in the chair lift to the lake, which I saw for about 10 minutes before the cloud cover came down and turned everything white. In summary, late May, early June may be a little early to visit Switzerland for the summer season, although I think this year, the conditions were a bit unusual. In the higher elevations, like Murren, most people did not have their summer flowers out and even in the valley, the gravesites still had pansies, versus more colorful summer flowers.

I love the Berner Oberland region and will go there whenever I get the chance, of course. I've been to most regions of Switzerland now, and the BO is by far my favorite. While in Lauterbrunnen, I stayed and ate at the Hotel Oberland, which is a great place.
Martha

Thanks for posting Martha - we like to visit the BO (our favorite too) in late May, but you just never know what the weather is going to do. I hope you enjoyed your trip.

This has been a very rainy, cloudy, and even snowy spring. I keep looking at the weather forecasts for the Lauterbrunnen - Interlaken - Grindelwald area and it is unrelenting clouds and rain with snow higher up.

It is really too bad that you have had the worst weather I can recall in my many visits there.

For once, I am glad I will not be there until late August.

We were very fortunate to have been there the week prior to your visit, arriving May 24th. The weather was "less than ideal" only one day, the other 2 days were fine.

Sorry you missed the good weather we enjoyed.

MvK

Thanks for the trip report. We had a beautiful, warm April (not a normal situation) and then a rainy May, with the end of May being very cold. Luckily, it warmed up last week and this week we've been having patches of clouds and blue skies along with heavy thunderstorms. We haven't had a day without short rain showers for quite sometime. It's perfect for my garden.

You just can't predict the weather in Switzerland.

Thanks for posting, Martha. You sound like quite the trooper to make the best of such lousy weather. When we took our trip to the B.O. a few years back, we were extremely lucky: fellow hotel guests in Murren told us they had been waiting for over a week for the weather to clear (good ol' rain in that case, not snow - this was in mid June). Mountains are real 'weather-makers', aren't they!

Wow. I'm thrilled to read that early June has been cool and/or rainy! That means that it is not a given that all Junes will be so warm as my last three visits. The unpredictability is a plus in my book. I love Switzerland. J.

I forgot to mention in my first post that I really enjoyed the train trip between Locarno and Brig - going across Italy through Domodosola. It was a very pretty ride, and I've done most of the great train rides in Switzerland. I was glad to chose to go that way, rather than back through Gotthard.

I had a great trip, despite some bad weather days and snow closed trails. Lauterbrunnen is tops on my list of favorite places in the world (that I have been to). It has a certain charm and outstanding beauty. I'm thinking about going back there this winter to see what it's like in total snow.
Martha