Narrowing Down Bernese Oberland Excursions

Depends so much on what you like to do. Are you traveling alone? Lots of great ideas here https://www.berneseoberlandpass.ch/attractions/.

It might be a lot to try and do your list in one day, especially if you want to do both lakes.

There are a few mountain excursions right on the lakes. Still very beautiful and it will save some travel time.

The closest to Bern would be to go on the Lake of Thun, then combine it with going up the Niederhorn. You will only ride on part of the lake, but I think it is the best section. Thun to Beatenbucht and up the Niederhorn. Use the SBB app to find your best connections, but you come down you can take the bus to Interlaken, or catch another boat to travel the remainder of the lake (this will be slower). If you do this one, you can evaluate if you want to do Harder Kulm as well, you will get similar views from the Niederhorn and will be higher up than Harder Kulm and therefore see a lot more.

If you ride on the Lake of Brienz then you can go up the Brienzer Rothorn from the stop in Brienz. Afterwards go back on the boat if you like, or take the train back to Interlaken.

Going into Grindelwald and up First will be wonderful, and of course into the Lauterbrunnen valley and up one side (Wengen) or the other (Mürren). Since you have limited time and are coming from Bern each day, focusing on the attractions in one area at a time might be helpful.

Thank you so much Maureen for your detailed plan. Do you think I should get the BO pass or should plan to do the excursions individually as they seem feasible while we're there. I'd be traveling with mh parents so would not be possible to do strenuous hikes. Thanks once again.

You would have to price it out, but in general I think that the Berner Oberland pass is an awesome deal! Regular price is 230 for three days, so just 77/day. Take a look at how much train tickets are, let alone going up mountains, you can easily use up this amount of money and much more in a day.

Niederhorn 56.00 return (this is just to get up and down the mountain, you will need to add cost of getting there by train, bus or boat as well)

https://niederhorn.ch/prices/?lang=en

Looks like First mountain is 68.00 and the Rothorn is 96.00

I have a different pass, more used by people who live here, so don't have experience using the BO pass, but to me it seems really good.

You can also get a half fare card for 120 and use that to get discounts on the train tickets as well as going up mountains. If you only do a few things, this might be cheaper.

Laurel and others have a lot more experience using this pass and can correct me if I am wrong on anything ;-)

This would be how I would optimize the BO Pass:

Day 1: train to Lauterbrunnen, transfer to train to Wengen. Gondola to Mannlichen. (1 hr 55 min journey). Different gondola down to Grindelwald Terminal. Train to Grindelwald. Walk through town to First station. Gondola up to top. First cliff walk. Lunch with a spectacular view. Gondola back down. Walk back to Grindelwald station. Train back to Lauterbrunnen. Gondola up to Grutschalp. Train to Murren. Funicular to Allmendhubel. Explore Murren. Gondola to Gimmelwald. Gondola down. Bus to Lauterbrunnen. Dinner. Train back to Bern.

You could do Harder Kulm and the boat ride on the same day. Personally, I would spend more time in the mountains than at the lake.

Everyone has their own level of hustle, but personally I can’t even begin to imagine doing Bern, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Männlichen, Grindlewald, First, Murren, Allmendhubel, Gimmelwald & back to Bern all in one day. I’m exhausted just typing it. I guess you could physically cram that all in, but all it would be is running from one transportation mechanism to the next with no time to actually enjoy any of it. Grindlewald/First, Wengen/Männlichen & Murren/Allmendhubel/Gimmelwald are 3 distinct areas that can each easily command their own day. I strongly suggest picking one of those segments for a day and actually enjoying it.

The things that travel4fun lists are wonderful to do for sure, but I agree with Wanderweg, it would be quite a lot to do all that in one day.

When planning how long a journey will take, the train schedule is very exact…although there are occasional disruptions, but all things working as usual Bern - Wengen will take 1h 38 min. Once you arrive the timing is not as easy to figure out.

If it is your first time in Wengen, or even your 100th time, it is so beautiful that you will likely take a moment to look around, take a few photos, see the person with their ice cream cart and suddenly realize you need some ice cream...

Now walk to the Männlichen gondola station. Not far, but perhaps a bit more looking as you go, look in a shop or two, take another photo because you just can't believe the beauty. Now you have noticed the Jungfrau, quickly snap a few photos of that...

It would be a pretty unique situation indeed if you were able to arrive at the gondola, walk right on and depart immediately. I have been there when there was no line-up and could walk right on…but I still had to wait about 15 minutes as the gondola filled up and was ready to leave.

So, 1h 55min to get from Bern to the top of Männlichen is pretty optimistic. Once up there you will also want to take time to look around, of course….and on and on it will go. As the day progresses things will get more busy and you can sometimes wait in lines for a long time to get onto the various gondolas. This is always something to take into account when planning.

There is so much to see that you will never get it all in, to just relax in that and go with what seems the most interesting to you, adding on as time allows, seems like the best way to go about it, in my opinion.

Guys, thank you so much for your feedback. I will surely take waiting time under consideration and maybe skip a place or two in the process.

However, What's your take on the Oeschinensee via Kandersteg Trail on the second day if I am also doing the Bachalpsee lake hike after the First walk on the first day. How the two lakes experience differs and whether it's worth to visit them both or not. I just wanted to visit a true Alpine lake with my parents and both of the lakes seemed quite convenient to hike to.

I am planning for
Day 01 - Bern city tour half day.
Day 02 - Bern - Grindelwald - Bachalpsee & First Cliff- Grindelwald - Interlaken (Boat+HK)
Day 03 - Bern - Lauterbrunnen (Staubacch+Mürren) - Wengen - Männlichem - Lauterbrunnen - Bern
That is not allowing me to add Oeschinensee into the plan but how's the plan anyway?

Everyone has their own pace, and I thought I’d share what we accomplished on our trip in June and why I proposed this whirlwind tour:

“Day 1: train to Lauterbrunnen, transfer to train to Wengen. Gondola to Mannlichen. (1 hr 55 min journey). Different gondola down to Grindelwald Terminal. Train to Grindelwald. Walk through town to First station. Gondola up to top. First cliff walk. Lunch with a spectacular view. Gondola back down. Walk back to Grindelwald station. Train back to Lauterbrunnen. Gondola up to Grutschalp. Train to Murren. Funicular to Allmendhubel. Explore Murren. Gondola to Gimmelwald. Gondola down. Bus to Lauterbrunnen. Dinner. Train back to Bern.”

We took the 7:45 train to Jungfraujoch and we’re back down to Grindelwald by lunch time (1:00 ish). This is why I think you could do the 1:55 journey from Bern to Mannlichen in the morning. I’m not saying you’ll have time to smell the roses!

After a leisurely lunch in Grindelwald, we went to First and did the thrill walk. Then we took the train back to Kleinne Scheidigg and on to Wengen and were back before dinner. Plenty of time to get across the valley to Murren if we had wanted too. But we had 6 days to explore. We did the Grutschalp/ Allmendhubel/ Murren/Gimmelwald loop in about 3 hours the next day, including playing at the playground and a stop for hot cocoa at Allmendhubel and lots of shopping in Murren. We had lunch in Lauterbrunnen that day.

I’m not the type to recommend whirlwind trips normally, but with only 2.5 days in such an area, you really don’t have enough time. If you want to linger, you have to be very selective.

Tysm for your suggestion travel4fun! Really appreciate the detailed guide

I think a key difference is that travel4fun was already there (somewhere in the Lauterbrunnen valley) when they began such a trip. - you have to imagine doing a day like this when you arrive, not when you are already there and have already seen everything locally. It is very different to walk out your hotel door and hop on the gondola vs first traveling for a few hours, then ‘starting’ your day.

When I come from Thun I have traveled for 1h 18 on the train, but of course I don’t live at the train station on the platform, so I would have left my house at least half an hour earlier in order to walk/bus/arrive at train station before departure time.

Anyway, @didarshams I think that your proposed three days look good.

You can adjust your plans if needed:
Get up in the morning and look at webcams of where you want to go, check the weather on MeteoSwiss app or website. If Grindelwald is socked in, perhaps Oeschinen will not be. Go where the current weather and forecast looks the best.

Also, definitely price your ideas out. If you are staying in Bern for the first day, then a three day BO pass might not be the cheapest option for you.

Sorry if I'm confused, but are you going back and forth to Berm each day - three days in a row?