Switzerland 2025 - Day 9 / Iseltwald, Mürren, Lauterbrunnen

Steps today: 23 860 / 15.74 km

We started the day in a little lakeside town that has experienced a tourism boom from Koreans in Switzerland: Iseltwald.  

Thanks to the Netflix drama "Crash Landing on You" this place is a mecca. I'm curious about the show now - have you ever heard about it?  It's about 30 minutes by slow bus from Interlaken, and about 15 minutes by express. We took the slow one there and lucked out with the express one back.

We got there around 9:30AM and sure enough there were busloads of Korean Tourists I can only assume recreating poses and scenes from the show...  I should have taken pictures.

We wandered around for a bit, and took a short hike to the Isch waterfalls. 

In all we stayed about 90 minutes; it was enough.

On our way to the falls, you have to cross a busy road and near the parking lot there was a sign pointing down the direction to the town that made me chuckle.  I really need to check out this show!

Most people who come here go to the Giessbach falls but it was a 2 hour walk away and we didn't feel like walking the 2 hours back! Instead, by around 11 we headed over to Mürren for the afternoon.

We stopped in Lauterbrunnen for a terrific lunch

Then, up to Mürren where we just had an aimless wander.

We found a sunny spot with a killer view, and I settled in for TWO Aperol Spritz! It was just so spectacular I didn't want to move.

By 3PM we pulled ourselves away, and decided to walk the Lauterbrunnen valley again - for the last time on this trip.  It was as lovely as ever!

Supper was across the street from the hotel again.  My no-resto-repeat rule flew out the window on this trip!

Rolling home from across the street was effortless - here's the view from my window seat table of the hotel right opposite. Perfect!

Switzerland 2025 - Day 4 / Lauterbrunnen, Schilthorn, Mürren to Gimmelwald

Steps today: 27 865 / 18.38 km

The skies were clear today and so there was no hesitation for the day's plans: Schilthorn, and lunch in the rotating restaurant.

Last time we went up to the Schilthorn in 2014 we were in the clouds and didn't get to see much, even in the rotating restaurant - it was a wall of white. We were not going to let this blue sky go to waste!

We started with a walk through the Lauterbrunnen valley from the train station to the cable car station that brings us up - it's one of Frank's favourite walks.  It's roughly 5km, which would normally take about an hour or so, but my never ending picture stops makes it much much longer....  but every view is a post card!

We arrived at the summit around 11:15AM. I was surprised by all the construction up there! Large parts of the observation decks were cordoned off, including where one gets the best views of "The Big 3", but with some creativity, crane-free shots can still be had.

Because we were so early, we were at the restaurant around 11:30 and there were no window tables available.  There is a morning brunch until about 11 (if you go up before 9AM and pay an extra 35$) and those lucky patrons got all the seats and were still lingering.

The maitre d's reaction when I asked for a window table was a little rude - I think he must be sick to death of that request. Instead, we were relegated to the non-rotating bar, which wasn't SO bad, and if we leaned left, we could still see the "Big 3" from our perch.

I had an Alpine cheese plate. 

After lunch, we went down to Mürren with the intention to hike along the Northface Trail. I am not quite sure how it happened anymore, but we decided to hike back down via Gimmelwald to Lauterbrunnen instead.

It was beautiful!... But I had a melt-down and could not make it all the way. I was overheated and therefore cranky. Instead of bickering for an hour, we just took the cablecar down from Gimmelwald to Lauterbrunnen

It was the right decision, I felt much better after a shady break and we enjoyed the Lauterbrunnen Valley walk again.

We thought we'd visit the Trümmelbach Waterfalls next, but it turns out that the cover charge was not included in our pass, and it was too expensive for a repeat activity so we skipped it and enjoyed an Aperol Spritz stop instead.

It was about 7ish when arrived back in Wilderswil, and I was dying for a vegetable of any kind so it was back to the place across the street from the hotel again.  Best tomatoes I've ever had!

Switzerland 2025 - Day 2 / First and Lauterbrunnen

Steps today: 24 772 / 16.34 km

For Day 2, we started with a hike up at First in Grindelwald. 

I had forgotten the cable car ride up was almost a half an hour!

Like our last visit 11 years ago, we picked the hike to the Lake (Bachalpsee) - which is just under 2 hours there and back but took us closer to 2.5 since I kept stopping for pictures.

The trail was quite crowded but I managed to get some clear shots, and it was more strenuous than I remembered... but it was a decade ago!

We were really lucky with the weather because the fog rolled in on the way back and the views disappeared.

Predictably after this it was time for lunch. Chässchnitte - a typically Swiss Dish which I love!

We decided to go over to Lauterbrunnen for the rest of the afternoon; we didn't walk the entire valley because we had plans to do that on another day, but just enough of a walk to feel like we burned off lunch!

And you guessed it - an Aperol Spritz stop too!

By about 5PM we decided to pack it in, headed back to Wilderswil and had supper at the Italian Restaurant across the street from the hotel.

Here you can see the restaurant on the right, and our hotel on the left. 

It was perfect! Couldn't be closer for us to roll into bed with full bellies around 8ish.