Trümmelbach & Interlaken, Switzerland

Switzerland has millions of wonderful places to go for a hike. I opened a Swiss guide trying to find some nice one-day mountain trip close to Zurich and felt totally overwhelmed with the number of places, mountain tracks, small cute villages by lakes, etc. Unfortunately the weather was not good, it was very cloudy, chilly and rainy. We were not prepared and unwilling to hike in rain. There was another option for mountain-cheaters: instead of hours of hiking up, go directly to the top with one of many cable-car. Tempting option, however, it was out of our backpacking budget range, and without certainty that we would actually have some nice views, not covered by clouds and fog, we dropped this plan as well. Then an intermediate option appeared. Not mountains, because it might rain, but a cave, and an unusual one with a huge waterfall inside. Trümmelbach is a series of ten glacier waterfalls that connect into one very high waterfall of 140 meters. It is located in the valley Lauterbrunnental called the valley of 72 waterfalls. To see all ten waterfalls you can either walk up the stairs or take a lift inside the cave. Next you need to pass a couple of “levels” more, walking along dark corridors and little terraces with viewpoints. It’s not the same as hiking in the mountains, but also quite a lot of fun 🙂

Around 20 km from the waterfalls there is a small town Interlaken, located between two lakes, as the name suggests  It’s the main transport gateway to the mountains and lakes of the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps. The town itself is beautiful, but not that interesting. The main attractions include shops with very expensive watches and fancy Swiss army knives.

It will not come as a surprise that Swiss landscape is absolutely stunning and we wish to come back and try some hiking or skiing some day.

More photos from Switzerland here.

Magda