one day trip lausanne to gimmelwald

You can use www.sbb.ch to see all of the train schedules. It takes 3:10 one way to get there. It's a drop dead gorgeous area, but you'll spend over 6 hours just sitting on trains. It deserves at least 1 night in the area. You could get there and the weather be dreadful and the whole area socked in with clouds...which defeats your purpose of going. I would not do such a trip unless I had a few days to spend.

thanks! we'll have a rental car and it appears it's only 2 hours to Bern, and another 1 hour to Gimmelwald from Lausanne. we wondered if the gps sites we are looking at may not be accurate (or the roads are slow going) to drive.

carol, you can't drive all the way to Gimmelwald. Sooner or later you have to dismount and take train & cable car or hike to get to it. A long way to go for a tiny village with minimal facilties. Beautiful, but in the way that you can only appreciate if you stay there in the area for at least one day. Day trip would be kind of like driving from Seattle to Vancouver Island, and then turning around and coming back.

perfect explanation! thanks so much for your help :-)

carol,

As a previous reply mentioned, you'll only be able to drive to Stechelberg where you'll leave the car in the pay car park (I don't know what the costs are, but someone else may be able to provide that information). From there you'll board the Schilthorn Bahn for the spectacular ~10 minute trip by Cable Car to Gimmelwald.

HI Carol,

You could do the drive. There is enough time. But ... you won't really have time to see and enjoy either Bern or Gimmelwald. I would choose one or the other. Personally, I'd skip Bern and just do the trip to Gimmelwald. If you can't afford the time to spend a night in the Berner Oberland, then definitely take the day trip.

I've done a day trip in the opposite direction (Berner Oberland to Lausanne and back) and would recommend going cross-country on your way to Gimmelwald. There is a lot of beautiful scenery if you take the autoroute from Lausanne to Bulle, then get off the autoroute and head East towards Boltigen and get to Gimmelwald that way. It will only take you roughly 15 minutes longer but is a much more lovely drive than staying on the autoroute the whole way.

You're on the right track to know your trade-offs with the advice above. If you find you can re-distribute a night from somewhere else in the plan, it would be worth it.