Hello,
Pursuant to my other thread covering our full two week trip to Lyon, Savoie, a bit of Switzerland and beyond, here is another thread (sorry if this is too much. Please let me know and I will delete if so). My partner and I have never been to Switzerland and will have essentially four full days here coming from Lyon (with a rental) car, arriving around noon on the first Sunday in August. We will likely be headed via car earlyish in the morning that Thursday (heading towards the Savoie, likely Annecy first).
We are avid outdoors people despite our residence of NYC, we are in our mid 30's and love food, art, beautiful scenery, music (of all sorts from classical to jazz to indie rock), local traditions, wine (we're both sommeliers), cheese, museums, history, meeting people, you name it. We do want to have one meaningful hiking day in Switzerland but not go too far from say Montreux, maybe 2-3 hours max one way. I've been looking at hiking Oeschinensee with potentially staying overnight at the Bluëmlisalp Hut. It's a 6.5 hour hike that we'd almost definitely have to repeat the next morning to get back to the starting point Kandersteg.
Other than this we've considered hiking along Lac Léman in a much more calm approach, 3.5 hours through some of the Vaud's most prized vineyards.
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/swit...rails_virality
We have come across plenty of hiking trails that are very close to Geneva (or even start from the confines of the city).

Pardon the unorganized nature of this post by the way. We're considering spending one of the nights in Lausanne and doing some sight-seeing there, the Cathedral, maybe the Olympic Museum, Ouchy, some lakeside walking. We are really quite open on how we spend this leg of the trip. I guess I'm seeing a lot of itineraries of Switzerland not really talk too much about 3-4 days being spent here, especially considering I don't think we want to check out Geneva (unless you think the contrary). We would like to have one quite nice meal in Switzerland as we work in Michelin-starred spaces here in the U.S.

For context on the rest of our trip we begin in Lyon for 3 nights, 2 days, pick up the car from Lyon towards Lausanne and then spend four days in Switzerland before going to four days in the Savoie, where we will be possibly hiking the Parc National de la Vanoise (with hopefully an overnight), followed by two nights around Vienne/Tain l'Hermitage for wine extensive sight-seeing.

Again, we are super open to ideas and welcome to whatever you may have to say. We do love cheese so if there's a place to see the cheesemaking process, that could be cool.

Always happy to provide more clarity and answer questions. Thanks so much in advance and to those who have helped us in the past!

As sommeliers, you might find the walk through the Lavaux vineyards of interest. The views are stunning and I'm sure you know that some of the wines from that region, usually produced in quantities too small to export to the U.S., are quite nice.

If you haven't already seen it, you might find some helpful information about things to do in Geneva, Lausanne (definitely see that cathedral!), and Montreux in my old trip report -- scroll down to post # 28.
My delightful sampling of Switzerland’s gems, with many thanks

Hope that helps!

We had a great hiking day at Oeschinensee three years ago. We did a circuit hike from the top of the lift -- maybe 5-6 hours -- so we didn't go all the way to the hut you've referenced. I think it was this hike or similar, and we did it clockwise, with the climb and high trail first before descending and walking back along the lake.
Lake Oeschinen Loop

It is a gorgeous hike (maybe one of our all-time favorites), but I think you want to make sure you have the flexibility to do this on a good weather day, and not just for the views. I recall the footing being a little tricky in places. We were staying in Kandersteg for 4-5 days, so we were able to adjust plans to do this on the best possible day.

I will second the suggestion for the Lavaux vineyards. In fact, you might want to consider staying where we did in 2016, at Auberge de la Gare in Grandvaux. This place is really a restaurant with something like five rooms. It's just steps from a station which will put you in Lausanne in minutes, or anywhere else along the lake in short order. And, you are right in the middle of the vineyards. There was even a little wine shop a very short distance from the auberge that operated as an honesty shop.

If you have time for a little cheese excursion, Gruyeres is an easy outing, providing a picturesque town and the home of Gruyere cheese. You can even combine that with a stop at Maison Callier in Broc for some chocolate.

There are many daily ferry trips on the Lake featuring the old steam paddlewheel vessels that would be great for a few hours....you can take a ferry to Evian in France and spend several hours and return...make a reservation for a light meal or a snack for a day or evening cruise. Spend some time strolling along the Lake in Montreux, make sure to see the Freddie Mercury and Queen museum at the Casino. The Charlie Chaplin home and museum is well done and worth spending a morning or an afternoon.

A few photos:

Scenes of the vineyards a short walk from the Auberge





Gruyeres seen from the train to Broc (old town at the top, and cheese coop is at the base of the town, to the right):