Question about where to spend six nights in the Berner Oberland

Most will say spend all the time in Murren, but I would split—3 Murren and 3 Wengen. It takes no time at all to change hotels.

For my upcoming June trip, I’ll have 3 nights in Murren (Hotel Edelweiss) and 4 nights Wengen (Hotel Schönegg). I like the idea of waking up and taking my early morning walk in both locations. And being in both locations at the end of the day for my evening walk.

I've stayed in Wengen and Lauterbrunnen before, but never Murren.

Sounds like a great trip!!

Thanks, Carrie. I've read your trip reports and appreciate your response. I figure if we change hotels we can do so when heading to the other side for our day's walk/hike.

Our three nights at the Hotel Edelweiss in Wengen were terrific! Daniel and his team provide five star service, and IMO their 4 course dinner option is a great value.

Thank you, TravelBug79. There are so many good choices, I'm having trouble deciding.

As a rule, you will lose about a half a day doing a short relocation such as this. In this instance, however, it does have some merit, as it will take a while to just get from one side to the other for day trips. In this case I'd say split the night between Murren and Wengen.

As a rule, you will lose about a half a day doing a short relocation
such as this.

Can I see a copy of this rule. 😊 Statements like this always puzzle me. I keep everything in my suitcase except my toiletries. So, it literally takes me minutes to pack up. Two - five minutes to check out. And you’re on your way to the next hotel. If you arrive before the room is ready, drop off your suitcase. If the room is ready, take 2 -5 minutes to check in. Travel time murren to wengen is 47 minutes. Early morning and you can be at your new location and have the rest of the day.

The rule to which I referred in an unwritten one based on traveling to roughly 40 countries. There are, of course exceptions to every rule. Perhaps you are, and this relocation is, the exception. If so, that's great. But for most people, under most circumstances, it involves packing up, checking out, getting to the transportation to be used, getting to the new destination, finding the new hotel, checking in, and unpacking. The distance between Murren and Wengen is short, so the rule may or may not apply in this case.

Carrie's not the exception. It takes us barely any time to change hotels either. Maybe if people bring a lot of luggage and (key) unpack a lot of it to distribute throughout the room, it takes hours. But we keep our toiletries in a little bag in the bathroom and everything else stays in our bag. The night before we may hang up a shirt for the following morning but usually clothes stay rolled in our packing cubes inside our packs.

How much stuff are you taking to those 40 countries? 😯🙂

How much stuff are you taking to those 40 countries? 😯🙂

We have traveled for decades with only one carry on bag and one personal bag. Simply relating our experiences when changing hotels. Of course, almost all of our relocations involve greater distances that that between Murren and Wengen. And in the OP's case, I did suggest it was feasable to change hotels due to the short distance between them. Your experiences have been different and that is perfectly ok. Just offered an opinion with which you disagree. Perfectly ok also. Shalom.

Personally, I dislike changing hotels in such a way, because unless you are lucky with room availability, it forces you to be out and about for a few hours, and if the weather does not cooperate (often the case in Switzerland), it is not ideal.
This being said, one could easily leave Mürren at the typical 11 AM check-out time, get to Wengen by 12, leave luggage, have lunch, and there won't be long to wait until a 3 PM check-in.
Also, if you want to hike on the Wengen side, I think you will enjoy the "shorter commute".

Assuming you are hikers, you will want to spend time hiking on both sides of the Lauterbrunnen Valley. And maybe even do some hikes that start or end at Grindelwald. If so, , the 3-3 split makes sense. In your case, it takes little more time to change hotels than it does to travel over to Wengen from Mürren to hike the Panorama trail, or Eiger North Face trail, or Bachalpsee, etc. And then you would still have to come back to Mürren, which takes more time.

We are hikers and have been to Mürren 6 times over the past 20 years. On one trip, we divided our time between Mürren and Wengen, staying at Hotel Bären in Wengen for hiking on that side. That worked out really well. But subsequently we started renting apartments in Mürren for 5-7 nights, so no time to move to Wengen. But we still want to hike there, so use up a considerable amount of time getting there and back in one day.

It is of course up to you, but I think it makes sense to move in your case. You can pack up in 30 minutes or less, then move to Wengen, drop you luggage, and have a full day of hiking before checking in and settling in to your new hotel. If the weather isn’t great for hiking, you make another plan to enjoy the charms of the region. Just as you would have. Do if staying in Mürren.

Thanks, everyone. I'm going to review all of the hikes and see which are priorities for us.

I'll let you know what we end up deciding--I suspect we will decide to spend the first three nights in Wengen and then move to Mürren.

Thanks everyone for your input. After looking at our planned hikes and other activities, we decided to spend the first three nights at the Hotel Edelweiss in Wengen and the second three nights at Chalet Fontana in Murren.

Thanks for letting us know what you decided. I think you’ll be happy with the change of scenery.

Perhaps you can report back after your trip and let us know how easy, or difficult, it was to change hotels.

Carrie, I will definitely report back on our trip. I assume we will be able to drop our luggage off in Mürren when we arrive, and will be sure to confirm that with our host. As long as that is the case, moving should go smoothly. I've used packing cubes the last few years for domestic trips so that I would be used to using them when we finally get to travel to Europe.