Swiss Pass and/or Berner Oberland Pass for 4 days in Murren and 3 days in Lucerne

Stay up in Murren (you can walk down to Gimmelwald from there) or up in Wengen.
Since you have parking the valley of Lauterbrunnen get either a Swiss Half Fare or the Berner Oberland pass.

Great, thank you!

I know Murren is smaller than Grindelwald and maybe Wengen? Are there plenty of restaurants in Murren? And would you suggest doing day trips to each of the other towns/villages?

Thank you for the help!

There are not a lot of restaurants in Murren (you can probably count them on one hand and they are mostly attached to hotels; it is really mellow there). Wengen has more restaurants than Murren.

I stayed in Murren four nights and there were plenty of places to eat, even at the close of the season ( I was bummed the Chinese place was closed, but the hotels that have restaurants were excellent). I did not do day trips, just enjoyed the views and hikes. You will pass through Lauterbrunnen anyway (maybe park there) and can hike to Gimmelwald.

Just to throw it out there, you really don’t need a car just because of the Munich portion. We regularly train from Munich to Switzerland and it’s really not a big deal. I think you’re going to find a car more of a hindrance than a help unless you’re trying to do some obscure things in Germany that don’t have public transportation.

Re: restaurants in Murren, many of them are attached to hotels and give first seating preference to their hotel guests. We were there in June 2023 and found that we absolutely had to reserve in advance, unless we wanted to eat at 9 pm. Also…we reserved at one restaurant but arrived early…they had given our table to someone else. Luckily, we were early enough that they had another table. As we were eating, so many people came in hoping to eat but were turned away.

We loved staying in Murren. We booked a VRBO for 6 nights and ate out for about half of them. We had so much fun riding the cable car and the train down to Lauterbrunnen and up to Wengen and beyond. One day we took the train to Bern for the day. We hiked a fair amount. It takes at least an hour from Murren to get up to Mannlichen for hikes, which is a consideration. We never got to Grindlewald; this would take even longer. We only went over to that side once, partly because of this timing (we do not get up and out particularly early). We found Gimmelwald cute but exceedingly sleepy. I think the reason Rick raves about it has more to do with the personal relationships he has there than the town itself. We thought Lauterbrunnen was charming, even if there is traffic and street noise. When staying in Murren, note that you have to be sure not to miss the last cable car of the day t9 get back to your lodging, although I think they went until about 7 or 8 pm in June.

@wanderweg makes a great point. What is your reasoning for renting a car? You can easily take the train from Munich to Lucerne, and then on to Murren or Lauterbrunnen. I would wager a guess that option, would be more budget friendly and hassle free than locating/paying for parking, and have you considered the cost of fuel? Train travel in Switzerland is terrific and IMO there is no need for a car when visiting that country. Once you have finished the Switzerland portion of the trip, just take the train back to Munich.