Greetings!
Taking my wife to Switzerland for our 20th. Looking for recommendations for places to stay in or around the Lake Brienz area during August 2021. I would also like to visit Chamonix during our trip. Any advice is greatly appreciated. My ultimate goal is to return in 2023 and compete in one of the UTMB races so I'd like to get the lay of the land, so to speak.
Lake Thun is next to Lake Brienz. Look at the town of Spiez there, charming.
For a special anniversary you might consider the Giessbach Grand hotel adjacent to the famous Giessbach falls. https://www.giessbach.ch/en/ You can get there by boat from Interlaken or Brienz and then an ancient funicular up to the hotel. Won’t be cheap and is quite elegant in a sort of turn of the century grand style if that appeals to you.
It is a bit out of our budget so we prefer to go just past the beautiful town of Brienz to Meiringen, of Sherlock Holmes’s fight with Moriarity on the waterfall fame. Really like the little town, don’t have a particular hotel to recommend because we stayed at an Airbnb at a place that we might not return to. The town Is served by trains from Interlaken and Luzern over the Brünig pass, which makes it worth a lot in my view.
Geissbach Hotel is definitely beautiful and quite expensive - but the atmosphere kind of reminded me of a retirement community.
But you don’t have to stay there to visit. It’s located right at Geissbach Falls and you can take the aged funicular from the lake up to visit the falls and hotel grounds. The Swiss Travel Pass covers the journey.
I can’t recommend lodging on Lake Brienz — we stayed in Muerren when we were in Switzerland last summer (and would do so again; loved, loved it).
But we took a boat ride across the lake on one day, and it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. I have a 24” x 36” print hanging on my wall of one of the small villages alongside the lake, which was spectacularly turquoise on that sunny day, with the snow capped mountains rearing up just behind the colorful houses with their window boxes of flowers.
No matter where you stay, you will love how absolutely beautiful the area is. Have a great trip!
