Switzerland Oct. 2019 - Lucerne, Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken ? Transportation?

3 nights Luzern include a mountain excursion or 2.
Forget Interlaken; go to Lauterbrunnen stay in the valley or go stay in one of the alpine villages Murren for example.

This site has the 30 day forecast for the area October 2018
https://www.accuweather.com/en/ch/lauterbrunnen/312139/october-weather/312139?monyr=10/1/2018

Luzern and Lauterbrunnen for sure. Interlaken is not in the mountains - you can see them from there. Lauterbrunnen in in the mountains. Mürren is half-way up a mountain, up from Lauterbrunnen.

I think Interlaken is well known because it is a larger town, and host to a lot of alpine sporting events as a staging area - sort of a gateway to the upper valleys where you want to be. But not that interesting in itself.

Its Gimmelwald not Grimmelwald, unless you mean Grindelwald. It makes a difference when looking at transportation options.

Stan - Fixed Gimmelwald (I "stan" corrected). Thanks.

I would spend 4 nights in the Lauterbrunnen/Murren area.

Think of Ballenberg as an alternative activity for a misty or overcast day.
I wouldn't make Gimmelwald a destination for a day. It's a small isolated hamlet which I think Rick Steves likes because he knows some locals there and as a famous writer, who wouldn't want to be away from crowds for awhile?

If you stay in Murren, you could spend 20 min there in passing on your way down to Stechelberg and Trummelbach Falls. It's a stop on the cable car down to the valley.

If you have clear days, there are a lot of trails to take that can easily use up 4 days. We typically shoot for 10 days in the area. If you click on my name, in my profile there is a link to our dozen favorite hikes in the area, with maps and pics.

I agree with splitting the time between Lucerne and Lauterbrunnen area. If you like to look down a valley or up into the mountains, stay in Lauterbrunnen or the Lauterbrunnen valley. I find the Lauterbrunnen valley to be just stunning. If you like to be halfway up the mountains and look down, stay in Murren or Wengen. I disagree with the opinion of skipping Gimmelwald. We loved it. I'm not sure I'd stay there, but we did end up spending some time there--3 times on our four day trip. Definitely do not stay in Interlaken. Weather is a crap shoot in BO. I did have a friend go there last year at the beginning of October. I warned her that it might already be winter and getting cold. It wasn't. It was lovely and they had a fantastic time.

Have to agree with Shoe.

We just returned last night from Switzerland and we had decided to stay in Murren.

We trained through Luzern and enjoyed a walk through the town, but we didn't stop to visit the area.

And we LOVED LOVED LOVED Murren ! And so glad we spent our time there. There are so many hikes in the area you could be there a week and never get bored.

Our favorite was the hike down from Gimmelwald into Stechelberg and Lauterbrunnen - fabulous !

UPDATE: How is public transportation if we don't stay in the center of Lauterbrunnen (like Grindelwald)?

There is every form of public transport from buses to trains to gondolas. It is very well organized for tourism.

Do you have Rick Steves Switzerland? If not, get it ASAP. It's one of his best books, and other than his over-emphasis on Gimmelwald, will tell you everything you need to know.

Stay in Gimmelwald, Mürren, Lauterbrunnen, or Wengen (in ascending order of size). All of them are in the Alps, rather then near them as Interlaken is. The whole Berner Oberland is thoroughly connected by buses, lifts, cable cars, cogwheel railways, etc. So, wherever you are staying, you can get elsewhere easily.

Interlaken is useful if you need a large supermarket or other store (the Migros in Interlaken was a great place to replace my day bag cheaply when my original tore). And it's got things like sex shops, casinos, jewelry stores, and lots of Asian restaurants, including a "Paksitani" restaurant (that's what the sign said, like Punxsutawney Phil in Groundhog Day). If you don't need or want these things, just use Interlaken as a place to change trains. If you do want them (the way I did when my day bag tore), you can get from Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken in 20 minutes, by trains that run several times an hour. But please, don't stay overnight there!

Grindelwald is nice and you can get anywhere in BO easily from there. It’s very pretty but in my opinion the other side (Lauterbrunnen Valley, including murren and wengen) is even prettier and charming.

I agree with both Harold and jules m.

The reason I was asking about other locations is because it "seems" like the room rates are lower outside of Lauterbrunnen which would be my first choice. It looks like we will have to bite the bullet when it comes to lodging.

I stayed in an Airbnb in Lauterbrunnen Valley, perhaps 2-3 miles out of town. It was well served by bus between stechelburg and the village of Lauterbrunnen. Bus is free with both the Swiss Travel Pass or your lodging

Transportation: pretty much every town has a train or cable car coming/going every 30 min.

My choices of towns are in this order: Lauterbrunnen, Murren, Grindelwald, Wengen. However, that's because we want to take a bunch of trails. If you just want to "hang out" and admire the views, Wengen is fine, just no fantastic trails starting from there.

I don't know about the others but our Luzern hotel gave us Luzern Visitors Cards that included free local transportation and more. The Visitor Card was apparently included as a super ammenity beyond the hotel perimeter.
http://www.luzern.com/en/visitors-card

The Visitor Card gives you free use of buses and trains within zone 10
of the city network, as well as a range of discounts for cableways,
mountain railways, museums and excursions in the Lucerne-Lake Lucerne
Region. You can also take advantage of ‘Free WiFi – LUZERN.COM’
hotspots dotted around the city.

While not on your list, we stayed at a Klosters hotel that gave us Davos-Klosters Visitor Cards. The Davos-Klosters card included train travel between Klosters and Davos as part of the free local transportation.

Nestor, I can recommend an apartment in Lauterbrunnen that might be available at a pretty good rate. Nothing fancy, but clean, 2 bedrooms (one has twin beds) and 1km from the train station but also served by a bus. Laundry, dishwasher, super fast Internet, small well-equipped kitchen. We stay here a week at a time and cook to save money and also to eat healthier than we can in Swiss restaurants. https://www.vrbo.com/1207898ha. October is off-season so they may negotiate rates a bit especially for longer stays.

I would, BTW, stay the whole time in Lauterbrunnen. In all of our trips to Switzerland, we've found nothing we like as much as this area. But if you must, give 2 nights to Luzern at most and the rest to Lauterbrunnen. Get a Berner Oberland Regional Pass for the lifts, buses, and mountain trains.

Thank you Laurel. Good tip. I was considering doing the 2 Luzern/4 Lauterbrunnen. Seems like Lauterbrunnen is the place to spend the most time. Time for more research.

We were in Switzerland in August. I think that 2 nights in Lucerne is plenty. We explored the town the afternoon we arrived, and the next day did a boat trip on Lake Lucerne to Vitznau. We didn't go up Mt. Rigi because we had just come from the Alps, but it would be very easy, the train to the top is right across from the boat pier. Then, after returning to Lucerne, we visited the Lion monument and explored both sides of the river. Then we left the next day. If you want to see Mt. Rigi and Mt. Pilatus both, you would need to spend 3 nights.

However, if you can, I would add another day to the Berner Oberland. We stayed in Murren, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. You can stay in Lauterbrunnen, but staying high up in the Alps is an experience to remember. 3 nights will be great - 4 nights would be fabulous! Transportation was never a problem.

We stayed in both Murren and Lauterbrunnen during our very short visit, and the views from our room balconies at the Hotel Alpina in Murren and Hotel Staubbach in Lauterbrunnen were truly spectacular. Staying in the car free village of Murren was a different experience than our stay in Lauterbrunnen, which some articles correctly refer to as Heaven on Earth.

Nestor,

You'll have to "bite the bullet" wherever you stay in Switzerland, as it's expensive! Three nights each in both Lucerne and Lauterbrunnen would be a good choice.

It would be a good idea to pick up a copy of the most recent RS Switzerland guidebook as that will provide you with a lot of good information to plan your trip.

Public transportation anywhere in Switzerland is excellent. It's well integrated between trains, buses, cable cars and other forms of transportation. With typical Swiss efficiency, trains generally depart precisely on time.

Thanks Ken. Just order the Switzerland guidebook since there will not be updated until 2020.