Day trip from Luzern to Jungfrau region - hope to see cows

With a Eurail Pass I boarded a night train from Prague to Amsterdam during a rainy night. When the train stopped in Germany around sunrise. I checked the weather forecast for the Berner Oberland. Since it called for a sunny, clear day in the Berner Oberland, I decided to switch things up and go there for the day since I could catch a night train for Amsterdam after a glorious day in Switzerland. It was an incredible day I will never forget. Gimmelwald definitely has cows grazing on the mountainside grass with their cowbells clanging! Hiking between Murren and Gimmelwald offers spectacular views of the Eiger, Munch, and Jungfrau mountain peaks and the easy, flat, blacktopped path only takes 40 minutes or so to hike. You can start either from Murren or from Gimmelwald as they each have cable cars/trains linking them to the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Finally, the train ride from Luzern to Interlaaken through the Brunig Pass is one of the most scenic stretches anywhere in Switzerland. And I’ve been on most of Switzerland’s train routes.
Have fun in Switzerland!

We saw (and heard!) many cows on both the North Face hike and the Mountain View trail. So can give a strong positive vote for Mürren. Both were beautiful!

Another option with less travel would be to go from Luzern to Engelberg and travel up to the top of Mount Titlis. We did that and when we got off at the midway point of Trubsee we found ourselves in the middle of a cow parade as we walked to the beautiful lake. I feel like that train ride was about one hour between the cities. We took a series of three cable cars from Engelberg up to the top of the mountain and the third one was a rotating cable car. It was a thrill to be walking in snow in July. I highly recommend it. We chose to stay two nights in Engelberg and then have three nights in Luzern, but I do know people do that as a day trip when the weather is really promising…

Laurie

In mid-September it is iffy that cows will still be up high but they are always in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. You could also get lucky and find some hanging out in Gimmelwald if you walk down from Mürren. So maybe Luzern-Interlaken-Lauterbrunnen-cable way to Grütschalp-train to Mürren-walk to Gimmelwald-cable way to Stechelberg-walk to Lauterbrunnen, then return. Long day. Make sure you have good weather.

September is the month of the Cow Parades. But these are only planned last minuyt. So I would suggest you just keep it open, and have a look at the Tourist Office website of Wengen, Murren and Grindelwald.

In Wengen there is also a chees festival, this year on September 22. I would expect the cow parades to be in the week preceding that.

If the timing is right and the cows are still up there, I highly recommend visiting Männlichen. In my experience, the cows are often right near the gondola station, you enter into their field and often have to walk right past them to reach the restaurant. These cows are particularly accustomed to people, making it easy to photograph them up close. However, when hiking in less touristy areas, it’s always wise to keep a respectful distance from the cows.

According to the SBB, the journey to the top of Männlichen takes about three hours one way, so it’s unlikely you’ll have time to visit more than one location. Also, be aware that you may need to take a replacement bus bypassing the damaged area in Brienz—this isn’t a big issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.

If your priority is seeing the cows rather than the Bernese Oberland, you can find a list of cow parades here. Simply narrow down your dates and location, and use the map to see which events are near you:

https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ch/experiences/events/events-search/?rubrik=alpinefestivals

Wassen, in the canton of Luzern, will have one on Sept. 14th

https://www.luzern.com/de/event/alpabzug-wassen

As you’ll be in Luzern, head up to Mt. Rigi. There were plenty of cows up there on my Sept. 2021 trip.

I looked back at my notes from last year. We saw “official” cow parades as early as Aug 26 and as late as Sept 21, which was in Wengen. I think the Lauterbrunnen one was Sept 23, but as WengenK said, they are scheduled only a couple of days in advance. You can watch the TI websites for updates. Here is the one for Lauterbrunnen https://lauterbrunnen.swiss/en/discover/events/calendar-of-events.html. Maybe even the Luzern TI has info on an alpabzug while you are there.

If you are lucky, you may run into a farmer bringing their cows down without fanfare, but still decorated. We saw them in early September up by Grütschalp a few years ago and over the years have run into them on trails all over, sometimes 3 cows, sometimes a couple of dozen.