One Day for Village hopping. Help Please.

Are you there for the mountains or the villages? Some people may disagree with me, but the villages are just places you base yourself out of to hike and ski. If you're staying in Wengen, I see no reason to visit any of the other villages. Their all just variations on a theme, with the exception of Gimmelwald, which is more primitive. Take the excursion up to the Jungfraujoch or hike up to Kleine Scheidig. Don't waste your limited time seeing more of the same in Mürren, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, etc.

PS- It's not wise to only schedule a single day in the Alps. If the weather doesn't cooperate, you've basically wasted your time there.

Thanks for your input but I guess I didn't quite make myself clear. We are doing the Bernina express, Golden pass, Jungfrau, spending a day in Lucerne, Montreux, Davos, St Moritz, etc but we still want to see those villages too, but we only have one day left in which to do so, so we still need to know how to proceed without backtracking or missing one of them. And yes, seeing the villages are just as important to us. We are in our 70's and not quite over the hill yet, but we don't intend to do hiking or even strenuous walking. Suggestions anyone?

Mel, of course it is your, and your group's holiday so I wouldn't want to interfere with that. But I must say that perhaps you will be seeing the same thing over as you go from village to village. You will get different views of the mountains in each village but the villages are quite similar.

There are three types (maybe more) of villages in Swiss beauty spots. There are those where communities live without a lot of interaction with tourists, such as some of those in the Engadin Valley or in Baselland; those which are commuter bedroom communities like around Zuerich and Bern, and those which now rely in great part on tourists, like all those you have named. All the villages, even Gimmelwald now, have facilities for tourists and look relatively similar. Both Wengen and Muerren have tourist restaurants, hotels, guest houses, and tourist chalets as well as some locals accommodation. Most locals work in the tourist trade. While the villages look a little different from each other, they are quite equivalent. Tourist villages predominately exist now to service the tourists with food, shelter and amusements both in winter and summer and provide transportation to the various ski areas and walks.

Do you have the Rick Steves Switzerland book? If so, there is a good map that shows all the links on both sides of the valley.

As you can see, Muerren and Gimmelwald, and the Schilthorn are on one side of the steep valley, and Wengen, Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau are on the other, with Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg down in the valley and linking the two sides together.

Starting out in Wengen, are you returning to Wengen for your bags or will you keep them with you during your day and attempt to avoid crossing your tracks?

Depending on that answer, if you still want to go through each village, will depend the order you do things.

From Wengen you can describe an arc on the Muerren side of the valley by taking the train from Wengen to Lauterbrunnen, crossing the road and taking the cable car gondola straight up over the old funicular track remains to Gruetschalp and stepping onto the train which Rick used to call the Panorama Fahrt to Muerren. In Muerren you will have to walk - there is no alternative - across the village to the cable car station. One way is up to the Schilthorn, the other down to Gimmelwald. Take the Gimmelwald gondola. At the Gimmelwald cable car station you get off one and onto the next gondola (or leave the station for Gimmelwald) and then over the edge into oblivion - hang on to anything you can as you have a sharp intake of breath - although the ride is pretty smooth the view is surprising and fabulous - down to the valley station at Stechelberg. Down there you can get a Postbus to Lauterbrunnen and the train back to Wengen. From Wengen you can either reach Grindelwald by continuing on the train to Kleine Scheidegg on its way up to the Jungfraujoch and change to the train to Grindelwald or you can take a cable car to Maennlichen where a short walk will put you on the cable car down into Grindelwald. From Grindelwald you either go back to Wengen or take the train down to Interlaken Ost.

It is all on page 116 of my Rick Steves Switzerland, your page numbers may be slightly different depending on edition.

That's a lot of riding around, much like you will be doing on the other part of your trip.

The views do constantly change, and if you were doing the Alps comprehensively you will get to all those places eventually.

You might consider visiting just a few and stopping to look at the views.

The Berner Oberland is one of my favourite areas. We stay in Muerren when we go.

You should know that the cable cars have no chairs - standing only - and because they are large with lots of passengers if you are short you may see a lot of the backs of heads.

If money is a concern you may want to add up the cost of this transportation before you buy tickets.

Thank you so much Nigel. This is exactly what we needed. Rick Steves new Switzerland book will be coming out in April so we didn't want to buy an out of date issue now. I've been using one from our local library but have to keep returning it. My husband is a retired home builder/developer and has an interest in buildings, quaintness, villages, and I have some very fond forty year old memories from Grindelwald. That's why we want to see the villages. We are beyond strenuous hikes and don't want too much walking either (we walk miles daily just to keep in shape here, but Switzerland is a vacation. Just schlepping around the countryside with a couple of suitcases will be enough for us I'm afraid. Thanks again for your input, it's very much appreciated.