wanderlust125

we are visiting the berner Oberland area and luzern for 5 days last week of May after spending 9 days in Italy.


This is how our current itinerary looks like

May 17 - 19: Rome
May 20 - 22: Florence
May 23 - 25: Venice, (if possible overnight train to interlaken ost on 25th night)
May 26 - 28: Interlaken area
May 29: luzern
May 30: luzen for the first part of the day and then travel to paris ( 7+ hours)
May 31 - June 3: paris
June 4: fly back home.


we are planning to spend 3 days in interlaken/lauterbrunnen area and 1 1/2 days in Luzern and we are torn as to whether we sould stay in Interlaken or Lauterbrunnen during our visit to BO area.

Here is what we are planning to do in the BO area and hopefully this will help you in recommending where to stay for the 1st 3 days in BO:

1.day trip to murren and then Schilthorn
2.Jungfraujoch day trip
3.Explore towns of Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Murren and near by places
3.Would love to take several walks,( not hikes) pleasant scenic walks of two hours

Any recommendation for 2 hour scenic walks in BO area would be of great help.

Lucerne: 1 1/2 day ( as we will have to take an train to paris on day 2 luzerne)



1 Day trips around Lucerne (either take excursions to the mountain peaks of Titlis or Pilatus, walks in the mountains or boat on the lake).
2 Day 2 spend time in Luzerne and then catch train to paris.
3. would like to take scenic walks in the mountain if time permits.


After reading many posts I know bob_brown would suggest to stay in Lauterbrunnen as it is centrally located and has easy access to the Schilthorn and the Jungfraujoch. BUt I also remember reading about contruction going on in this area,I am not sure if its good to stay here. I have read most of the prior posts here, and I still cant make up my mind, so I thought I'd repeat the question one more time and hope you guys wouldnt mind me doing this

I know most people on this forum would vote for Wengen as its nicer and better views but time is a big factor for us, so staying in wengen is ruled out as we dont want to lose 30 to 4o mins everyday when we make the day trips as we only have 3 days in this area.


About Hotels:

BO area:
I have read about people staying in the Oberland and Silberhorn while in lauterbrunnen and since I have also read about contruction going on in this area I am not sure if we should make this our base for 3 days. we would rather prefer making interlaken as our base and then make day trips to Jungfraujoch, schilthorn and other places from here.

1. Is it possible to stay in interlaken as do day trips to Jung, Schilthorn and other places mentioned above?
2. can you please recommend few hotels or B&Bs under 150/160$ in this area


Luzern: we checked with HOTEL DES ALPES and they seem to have rooms available for our dates and we will probably stay here ( 198 CHF for double room without view) but just wanted to know if we can find hotels
under 150$?? I know its too much to ask as hotels are costly in swiss!!


Btw we are not renting a car and will be taking train when we are in swiss. dont know if this would make any different in the choice of town to stay overnight??

Thanks for any suggestion about hotel/choice to town to stay for 3 days in BO.

Cicerone

I am sure you will get a lot of opinions on this, here is mine:

1. If you stay in Interlaken, you will be adding 20-40 minutes to your travel time each day just to get to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Murren, Wengen to start your day of sightseeing, so you are not saving any time by staying in Interlaken IMO. Although I am not a fan of Lauterbrunnen compared to the other towns in the valley, I far far prefer it to Interlaken, and you can walk out the front door of your hotel and get immediately into the countryside for walks, so you won't waste any time at all if you want to get right into nature. To get to Murren you take an extremely enjoyable funicular (now being replaced or added to by a cable car I believe), to get to Wengen is the beautiful train ride up the hill. In either case, neither is a "waste" of time. With two days, you are only going to be able to go to either place only once anyway so why add more time to that journey by coming via Interlaken.

2. The only advantage in staying down in the lake area is that the weather in late May is a bit iffy, and if you get a rainy, cloudy or foggy day there is more to do in the lake area; however you might consider Thun or Brienz instead if you want to take this option. In late May you are better off than early May so I would probably chance it to stay in the valley itself rather than down on the lakes.

3. I am not ware of construction in Lauterbrunnen, are you talking about the cable car they are adding to get up to Murren? Well, unless it is emergency work like on a dam or something, the Swiss do not work at all on weekends, and do not work after 5 pm or so during weekdays, so I would not be worried about night noise, and during the day you will be out so it should not bother you. If it is road work, you aren't driving and so this should not affect you at all, once you get into the countryside you won't even see the road; if it is train work, then look at rail schedules, but I don't see anything about this on rail.ch.

4. If you are worried really about noise, then consider Wilderswil, which is one stop further south down the tracks from Lauterbrunnen. Run a search here or I can ask around about hotels, I know there are a few.

5. The towns in the valley are extremely tiny, there really isn't anything to "see" in them, you might stop to eat at a restaurant and maybe go to a souvenir shop in Wengen, Murren or Lauterbrunnen but these towns are basically one street and that's it, then you are in the countryside.

6. As for walks, the walk above Wengen from Maennlichen to Kleine Schiedigg is basically flat and can be done by any one of any ability, people bring children in strollers. This is one of the best walks in Switzerland, and should definitely put this on your list, weather permitting. May is iffy. There will be snow in some parts, so bring good water-proof shoes. Weather permitting and if you want, once you get to the railroad station stop at Kleine Scheidegg, you can continue walking down all the way to Wengen if you want, or you can get on the train at Kleine Scheidegg and get off at one of the intermediate stops between Kleine Scheidegg and Wengen. The steeper parts would be between Kleine Scheidegg and Allmend stops, so if you want to have a shorter, more gentle walk, stay on the train until the Allmend or the Wengernalp stop.

The walk along the valley floor from Lauterbrunnen to the cable car at – is flat and very pretty, a few waterfalls along the way. The walk from the funicular stop at Grutsalp above Lauterbrunnen to the town of Murren is also flat and affords excellent views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

The Oeschinensee walk in Kandersteg is also a great walk and can be done by anyone of any fitness level. You have to take a train or drive to Kandersteg, which is in the next valley over from the Jungfrau valley. From there, you take a cable car up and the walk starts from that point, you walk to the lake and then back down to the town, (You can also hike up rather than taking the cable car, it is uphill but not terribly steep as hills go in Switzerland.)

For other walks, go to the tourist office in each town, they usually have a page or two printed in English with suggested walks, including duration and difficulty. Finally, if you have time, there are two excellent books on walking in Switzerland. The first is Swiss Bernense Oberland by Philip and Louise Alspach. This gives an overview of the BO and gives details on several walks. The second is the Lonely Planet book "Walking in Switzerland". This rates walks by fitness level, even walks for kids. It also gives directions for using public transport. I find both accurate and very helpful. The above walks are all listed in both books.

7. Think long and hard about that night train from Venice. I did this last year after a 20 year hiatus from night trains thinking it would be "fun" for my nieces and nephews who had not experienced European trains. It was anything but fun. We of course had hot weather and air conditioning froze the people on the lower bunks and boiled the people in the upper; you may not have that problem. However, there are NO first class sleepers on this route (I asked Swiss Rail about this basically every day for weeks), only second class couchettes, which were not comfortable nor that clean, the bathrooms were not good, dining car was so crowded we could not get in at all. Also, the actual time for the journey is not that long, as you don't leave Venice until 11 pm, and you have a 6 am change of trains in Brig, so you don't actually get that much sleep on the train and are pretty much exhausted on the first day. All in all I would never do it again. Consider flying, albeit you then have a longish train ride to get to the BO.

8. I personally would skip Lucerne for the overnight and spend the extra night in the BO ( esp. if you fly to Zurich) so you can spend maximum time exploring this area and have more time to be flexible with the weather, i.e. the one day you may have scheduled for the Jungfrau may be cloudy up top, so if you have 2 days that is better. You could easily train to Lucerne the morning of your trip to Paris, store your stuff at the station, spend 2 hours seeing the old town, have lunch and then head off on an afternoon train. As it will be light until like 10 pm you will still be able to do the train trip during the daylight hours.

Your itinerary overall looks exhausting and really rushed; 3 days in Rome is really so little esp as one is your arrival day. You are doing in just over 2 weeks what I would need at least a month or better 6 weeks to do. I know there have been comments on this on your other posts, but I still think you are being too ambitious and this is not a relaxing way to really enjoy Europe and really appreciate what it has to offer, it's just a way of seeing a bunch of stuff and it will end up being quite jumbled together in your mind I think at the end of this exhausting trip. Note that May 25 is a holiday in most of Europe and so some museums and restaurants may be closed, which may affect your travel plans on those days.

wanderlust125

Wow...Cicerone this is really detailed reply from an expert in this area!!

Give me a few minutes to read and ask questions..

Thanks a bunch for taking time to type a real long detailed response

Cicerone

Sorry, did some more thinking:

9. The only hotels in the BO that I know in your price range are in Wengen. One is the Silberhorn (a common hotel name) which I do know and ouwld recco, the other is the Alpenrose which I don;t know but whch is popular on this site. See below

Hotel Alpenrose
alpenrose.ch

Silberhorn HOtel
www.silberhorn.ch

Also try
karenbrownguides.com
alpineclassics.ch
relaischateaux.com
romantikhotels.ch
www.swisshotels.ch

Also look at tripadvisor.com which ranks hotels based on reviews.

10. If you decided to fly to Switzerland rather than taking the train, try to take a non-stop flight as you will save a lot of time. It is usually cheaper to buy a round trip ticket; just buy it and don't use the return. You can fly non-stop in just over an hour, then train time to the BO is about 2.5 hours. There aren't a lot of discount carriers flying into Zurich, but do check around.

(You could fly into Berne, and then take a train. Trains to the BO from Berne would take about 1.5 hours. There are no direct flights, so door to door, flying to Berne and flying to Zyrich takes longer than flying to Zurich. Also, there is no train station in the aiport at Berne, so ou ahve to take a bus or taxi to teh train station in downtown Berne, a little bit of a pain with lugage, and some added time to your journey. However, if you can get a really cheap flight into Berne, this might be worth it.)

wanderlust125

Thanks Cicirone, I have sent a request to Silberhorn HOtel and will look at other hotels you have mentioned here.

So looks like we are better off staying in the valley rather than staying away in Interlaken. Thanks for the detailed info.

After all the things you have said, we are thinking of adding one more day to italy and if possible one day to switzerland.

Btw we are flying into ROME from London ( visiting relatives for 4 days there) and since this is not trans-atlantic flight and a short flight we should be fine. we are hoping that we will be out of jetlag by then.

Well it took me more than 5 mins to just read your post, I must say you have lot of patience to type up this response, but its really informative..so thanks.


Got to go, well its already 2 am here, will write back again later

Cicerone

I see your point about 3 days in Rome and not having jet lag to contend with, so you might get more done on your first day, but what time do you arrive? FYI, intraEurope flights have a very nasty habit of being late unless you are on the very first flight out in the morning from London. . . .so you may get an even later start on your first day in Romethan if you were on an overnight international flight which tend to arrive on time and even a little bit early.

Also, I did the night train from Venice when I was living in Europe last year and so also had no jet lag; it was the friggin train that
exhausted me, not the jet lag.

swandav2000

Hi again wanderlust125,

Not much I can add to Cicerone's normal thorough and detailed replies!

I only want to echo one point -- Interlaken is in the flats, between two lakes, and is a major hub of the area. I encourage you to stay closer or IN the mountains.

Good luck!

s

barbmike

I did not read all the replies so I don't know if this was already stated. If you take the early morning train from Venice to Interlaken Ost, you'll arrive around 3:00PM. This basically eliminates any real touring the first day. Have a Nice Trip!!! Mike