Holidays to Switzerland Travel Podcast Episode 155 Transcript

3 Perfect Days in the Jungfrau Region: The Ideal Swiss Itinerary for First-Time Visitors

You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Welcome to the Holidays to Switzerland podcast. If you’re planning a trip to Switzerland, this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Carolyn Schönafinger, the founder of holidays to switzerland.com, and in each episode, my expert guests and I share practical tips to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland.

You’ll get helpful advice about traveling around Switzerland and hear about the most popular destinations, as well as some hidden gems, and we’ll introduce you to plenty of wonderful experiences that you can enjoy as part of your Swiss vacation. Each episode is packed with expert tips, itinerary ideas, and inspiration to help make your Swiss Vacation Planning easy.

So let’s dive in. Grüezi! Hi there. Welcome to this week’s episode.

The Jungfrau Region is, without doubt, one of the most popular destinations for first-time visitors to Switzerland. A visit to the region is often at the top of the list when travelers are planning their Swiss vacation. But whilst visiting the region is a must, with so much to see and do, it can be really hard to choose a daily itinerary, or to know exactly how much you can fit into one day.

I’ve seen some pretty ambitious daily itineraries shared in the Switzerland travel planning Facebook group, and whilst they are possibly doable, often folks underestimate the time that it takes to move from one place to another, even with Switzerland’s fantastic public transport network. In this episode, I thought I’d share my suggested three-day Jungfrau Region itinerary for first-time visitors.

And whilst all the timings that I’ll mention in this episode are from Interlaken, all of these daily itineraries are suitable regardless of where you’re staying in the region. My three-day itinerary includes a mix of mountain excursions, village visits, and lake cruises, and of course, there are plenty of breathtaking views as well.

Now, although I’ll give you an itinerary for day one, day two, and day three, of course, you can switch these around based on the weather. The time of year that you travel to Switzerland will also have some bearing on the excursions that you can do, as not all of them are available year-round.

And before you set off each day, be sure to check the time of the last cable car, funicular, or boat. The last service is generally around 5:30 or 6 p.m., and you definitely don’t want to get stranded on a mountain or without a boat service to get you back to where you started. Regular trains, though, operate until late in the night, so if you want to stop in a town or a village for dinner, there will certainly be a train to get you back to your base in time for bed.

Now my first day in the Jungfrau Region, I recommend doing one of those iconic mountain excursions, and there are a couple of options. The first and probably the most famous, is to Jungfraujoch. It’s known as the Top of Europe, and is famous for having the highest railway station in Europe at 3,454 meters above sea level.

Now there are a few different ways that you can reach Jungfraujoch, and often it’s great to make a combination. So you can either go from the Grindelwald side, and there are two routes from there. You can take a cable car, which is called the Eiger Express, up to Eiger Glacier and then connect with the Jungfrau train for the final part of the journey.

You can travel by train all the way from Grindelwald, or you can travel through Lauterbrunnen and go by train the entire journey as well. So you’ll need to decide which way you want to travel. And as I said, it’s a great idea to go one way and come back another.

Now, seat reservations are mandatory on that final train sector if you’re traveling between the first of May and the 31st of August, so it’s a great idea to book those at least a day ahead if you can. You might also want to depart as early in the morning as you can to get up there before all the big crowds, and oftentimes the weather can be much better in the morning than it is later in the day as well.

At the summit, there’s plenty to keep you amused. The great Aletsch Glacier is well worth a look. It’s just incredible. It’s a glacier that stretches for 20 kilometers through the Alps, and it’s very, very impressive.

You can take a self-guided tour through an Ice Palace, see the Sphinx Observatory, and stand on the terrace for great views. And there’s even a Lindt chocolate shop up there during the summer months. There’s a snow park where you can try snow tubing, and of course, there are restaurants and cafes to get a bite to eat as well.

Now you should allow at least two hours at the top, that’s my recommendation. And as there are a couple of intermediate stops that you might like to hop off the train, or when you hop off the Eiger Express, you might want to have a look around. So allow extra time for that as well.

Your journey time to Jungfraujoch, Top of Europe, from Interlaken is about an hour 40 if you take that Eiger Express Cable Car option, or if you travel the entire way by train, it’s two hours and seven minutes. So you’ve got nearly four hours, as it is, just for your travel to and fro, with an extra couple of hours at the top. So you should allow at least six hours for your excursion to Jungfraujoch.

Once you’re heading back down, you might like to stop at Lauterbrunnen and have a stroll around the village. It’s beautiful, full of traditional Swiss chalets, and of course, the famous Staubbach Falls. Now, if you’ve got enough time, you could take a walk through the village, or you could even take a bus from the train station and head to Trümmelbach Falls, where over 20,000 liters of water gush through 10 stages of waterfall every second.

You’d need to allow at least one hour in Lauterbrunnen, that’s my recommendation, and at least two hours if you plan to include Trümmelbach Falls. There can be waiting times to enter those falls, and a fee does apply to enter them, whereas Staubbach Falls are free to view. Trümmelbach Falls aren’t open year-round either, so make sure you check the opening dates so you don’t get there disappointed.

Option number two for day one is to head up to the Schilthorn, which is not quite as high as Jungfraujoch, but offers the most amazing views. It’s at a height of 2,970 meters above sea level. And from up there, you can see what’s known as the Swiss skyline. So you can see the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau from the Schilthorn, and really, you’ll never forget those views.

The Schilthorn is famous for its revolving restaurant, and it’s now also home to the world’s steepest cable car, and it was also made famous quite a few years ago when it was the location for filming of the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Again, there are a couple of different ways you can reach Schilthorn. So the first is, when you come into the Lauterbrunnen Valley, you can take a bus from Lauterbrunnen train station to Stechelberg, and from there, you can take the world’s steepest cable car up to Mürren and connect to another cable car onto Birg and then up to the Schilthorn.

Or from Lauterbrunnen, you can step out of the train station, cross the street and take a cable car up to Grütschalp and then join a train which takes you to Mürren, where you then connect to the cable car up to Birg and onto Schilthorn.

Now, if you are traveling up that second way that I mentioned via Grütschalp, consider hiking from Grütschalp to Mürren. It’s not a difficult hike. It takes around an hour or an hour and a half, and as you walk, you’ll just see the views of those three iconic mountains, Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau ahead of you all the way. It’s a breathtaking sight.

Now, if you’re heading up to Schilthorn and you’d like to have brunch in that revolving restaurant, make sure you book ahead. It can be very popular, so you don’t want to miss out. Book ahead on the Schilthorn website.

For that, you should allow at least one hour at the top and longer if you’re having a meal, and then you can also stop, and I really recommend that you do, at Birg and at Mürren to have a look around. At the Birg station, there’s a thrill walk, which is like a cliff walk attached to the side of the cliff that you can walk around. There’s a glass-floored viewing platform. And again, those views are just amazing.

At Mürren, this beautiful village is well worth a look. You can wander through the village. Maybe have lunch there, if you haven’t already eaten. And yeah, it’s a really traditional, charming Swiss village. You could also take the funicular from there up to Allmendhubel, and that funicular ride is only around four or five minutes, so that’s a nice little option as well.

The journey time from Interlaken to the Schilthorn summit is about one hour 10 if you’re traveling via Stechelberg on that world’s steepest cable car. And it’s around one hour 41 if you go through Grütschalp and take the train across to Mürren. Of course, if you’re adding in a walk there between Grütschalp and Mürren, you’ll need to add more time. So you’d need at least five hours minimum for your excursion to the Schilthorn.

Now, of course, you could also stop again in Lauterbrunnen on your way back and visit the waterfalls and stroll around the village. And many folks are keen to visit Gimmelwald, which I know the American guidebook author Rick Steves is a big fan of. You can actually walk from Mürren down to Gimmelwald. It’s not a very difficult hike, but it is quite steep in parts, and you can then catch a cable car from there back down to Stechelberg. So that’s my recommendation for the first day of your stay in the Jungfrau Region.

On the second day, I recommend doing a lake cruise. Now there are, again, a couple of options that you can choose from, the first being Lake Brienz and the second, Lake Thun.

Boats don’t operate on Lake Brienz all year round, so you’ll need to check and make sure that this is possible during your visit to the region. But if you’re heading out on a boat on Lake Brienz, you’re going to be rewarded with views of incredible turquoise-colored water. It’s really amazing, this color, and there’s so much to see on the cruise as well.

So I recommend cruising from Interlaken to Brienz. One place definitely worth getting off the cruise on the way to Brienz is at Giessbach Falls. You’ll see the falls as you’re approaching the stop, and when you hop off the boat, you can either walk up to the main area, where you can cross over to go and visit the falls, or you can take a funicular up to that same area.

The falls are just amazing. They’re huge, and they come down the mountain in all these different steps. There’s a lovely hotel and restaurant there where you can have a nice lunch or a coffee. You can wander around underneath some of the falls and see them from lots of different viewing areas. So it’s really worth stopping there and having a look.

Keep in mind, though, that the boats don’t operate every hour. Sometimes there might be a two-hour gap between when you get off the boat and when the next one comes along. So you’ll need to check the timetables to make sure that you’re not stranded there for longer than you want to be.

If you do hop off at Giessbach Falls, then when you get back on, you can cruise onto Brienz. This is a beautiful town, again, with lots of wooden chalets, so have a stroll around the town. Wander along the lakefront there.

The other thing you can do from Brienz is you can take a steam train, the Brienz-Rothorn train, which runs during the summer months. The steam train leaves from right opposite the boat pier, so you won’t have any trouble finding it. And that’s a really nice excursion as well. It takes about an hour for the train to travel from Brienz up to the top of the mountain.

So you’re going to need two hours travel time, plus any time you spend at the top, in addition to the time that you’re cruising. So keep that in mind. Or you could take a bus from near the boat pier and train station in Brienz to the Trauffer Experience, where you can see wooden cows and animals, sort of toy-sized ones, being made. It’s a lovely experience. Or to Ballenberg, which is a Swiss open-air museum. So either of those things are good options as well.

When you’ve finished doing what you want to do in and around Brienz, you can then take the train back to Interlaken. There are two trains per hour, and it only takes around 20 minutes. So it’s much quicker to travel to Brienz by train.

The boat from Interlaken all the way to Brienz takes around an hour 15, but as I mentioned, remember that those boats don’t always operate hourly. So plan your day out after you’ve looked at the timetable.

Once you’re back in Interlaken, you can have a wander around the town, or, depending on the time, perhaps visit the Funky Chocolate Club or watch the paragliders landing in the center of town.

The other option that I mentioned is Lake Thun. This is on the other side of Interlaken, and it’s a bigger lake than Brienz, and the water is quite a different color. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less beautiful or any less worthy of a cruise.

Now the boats operate on Lake Thun all year round. So even in winter, it’s a nice thing to do to hop on a boat and see the beautiful towns and villages from the water. I love to cruise, firstly, to Spiez, which is a lovely little town built around a bay in the lake, and there’s a lovely castle which overlooks that bay, so you can even hop off there and have a wander around.

Or before that, you could actually hop off at the St. Beatus Caves, if that is of interest to you. After looking around in Spiez, if you do get off there, you can then continue on to Thun. Again, remember those boats don’t always operate hourly.

In Thun, you can explore the town. It’s a beautiful town, again, with a castle. You can have lunch or coffee by the river and then return to Interlaken by train. The boat from Interlaken to Thun takes two hours and 10 minutes, so allow additional time if you’re hopping off in Spiez or at the caves on the way, and then the train from Thun back to Interlaken is a 30-minute journey. So for either of these excursions, you really need to allow four to five hours minimum.

On day three, I suggest you head up to the mountains again. And of course, it’s the Jungfrau Region, so there are plenty of options. Three that I particularly like are Grindelwald First, Männlichen, and Schynige Platte. So I’ll tell you about each of those.

Grindelwald First is quite popular because of the amazing activities that you can do there. So there’s mountain carts, there’s Trottibikes, which are like scooters with big fat tires. So it’s quite popular. There’s zip lines, and it can be very, very busy, especially during those peak summer months.

From Interlaken, you would travel to Grindelwald, and then from there, you go through the village, which you can either take a bus or you can walk, and you get to the Grindelwald First Valley cable car station. You need to take a series of three cable cars up to the summit, which takes in total, 30 minutes.

Once you’re up there again, you’ve got amazing views. You can do some of those activities that I mentioned. Or you could hike to Bachalpsee, which is a small alpine lake which is very, very beautiful. It takes about an hour each way. And if you’re going to do that, make sure that you take your any food that you want and your drinks with you. There’s no facilities once you get to the lake.

Back at the Grindelwald First summit, there’s a Cliff Walk which extends out over the abyss. But of course, it’s perfectly safe, and you’ve got amazing views, again, of Grindelwald and the Alps in front of you. There are other activities at the intermediate stations as well. So although the Cliff Walk and the zip line start at the summit, some of the other excursions start at those intermediate stations. So you might need to travel back down and stop at one of those intermediate stations before you can join those activities.

Once you’re back in Grindelwald town itself, have a good wander around. It’s another beautiful village with lots of things to see and do. There’s a mini golf course which is open during the summer, which is great if you’re traveling with children, or you can take a 13-minute bus ride from the cable car station to the Grindelwald Glacier Gorge, which is definitely well worth a look.

Now, it only takes 35 minutes to get from Interlaken to Grindelwald, so you don’t need to allow a full day for this excursion, but you can certainly spend a whole day in Grindelwald. There’s plenty to keep you entertained if you’d like to.

If you are heading back to Interlaken in the evening, consider heading up to Harder Kulm, the small mountain there just behind Interlaken. It’s lovely to have dinner up there or a sunset drink. Again, you’ll need to check the opening times. They do change throughout the year, and Harder Kulm is typically open from April to November.

Option number two for day three in the Jungfrau Region is to visit Schynige Platte. Now this is open from usually mid-June until late October. And to reach the summit of Schynige Platte, you take an historic cogwheel train, which is a really, really interesting and fun ride to take.

It takes about 50 minutes from the little town of Wilderswil, which is just outside of Interlaken, so it’s very easy to get to, and the cogwheel train leaves from the same station as the regular train, so you don’t need to travel any distance to get from one to the other.

Once you’re at Schynige Platte, there’s a beautiful Alpine garden where you can wander around and look at some of the many, many flowers that grow naturally on the Alps. There’s a brand new viewing platform in 2025 to take in all those amazing views of the Alps around you, lots of hiking trails. And of course, there’s a restaurant where you can enjoy a nice lunch or coffee and cake.

And because there’s a limited number of guests who can visit Schynige Platte each day, it’s much less busy than some of the other mountains. The cogwheel train only has a couple of carriages, so there’s a limited seating capacity, and that means that there are fewer people on the top when you get there, which makes for a really nice experience.

The trains from Interlaken to Wilderswil take just a few minutes, and as I mentioned, you hop off there and transfer to the Schynige Platte train, which takes 50 minutes to reach the summit. So you’re going to need to allow at least an hour travel time each way, plus the time that you spend at the top.

The third option for day three is to visit Männlichen, and this is a really, really lovely mountain to visit. You can reach Männlichen from either Wengen or from Grindelwald. So again, you’ve got a couple of options, and you can travel one way, via Grindelwald and the other via Wengen, if you want to.

Männlichen is closed for short periods in spring and autumn. So you’ll need to check the operating dates of the cable cars to make sure they coincide with your visit.

At the summit of Männlichen, there’s lots and lots of walks that you can do, but one that is, I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but it’s not very long. It’s the Royal Walk. It’s actually quite steep, takes you up to the highest part of the mountain, and there’s a lovely viewing platform there, shaped like a crown, gives you the most incredible views over the Lauterbrunnen Valley below you. So that’s really worthwhile doing. As I said, it’s quite steep, but the views are definitely worth it.

At Männlichen, there’s a fantastic playground for children. There’s a big wooden cow that they can climb inside and have a great time, as well as lots of other things to keep them entertained. There’s a lovely restaurant there. Again, the views are just to die for, but there are lots of hiking trails.

And one that’s particularly family-friendly is the Lieselotte Trail, which has marked sort of waypoints along the way with different activities for kids to do. And from Männlichen, you can also take the Panorama Trail, which takes you right across to Kleine Scheidegg, which is on the route up to Jungfraujoch, so that’s a lovely hike that you can do as well.

The travel times for both the ways that you can reach Männlichen are quite similar. From Interlaken to Grindelwald, it takes 35 minutes by train, and then the cable car ride takes you 25 minutes. If you’re going from Interlaken to Wengen, again, that journey time by train is around 35 minutes, but the cable car from this side only takes six minutes, so it is slightly quicker.

Now, on any of these days that I’ve mentioned here, you could possibly squeeze in more on each of them, but you would be rushing, and you probably then wouldn’t have the best experience that you could by slowing down a little. So my advice is just do what you want to do without trying to tick off too many boxes.

Now if any of these places sound like a definite for your Swiss itinerary, you’ll find lots more information about them on my website, holidaystoswitzerland.com, and there are lots of other podcast episodes about the Jungfrau Region as well. Many of the excursions and activities that I’ve talked about today are included in or discounted with a Swiss rail pass, and I’ll link in the show notes to all the articles and podcast episodes about the Jungfrau Region and to my article “How to Choose the Best Swiss rail pass for your trip,” so you can work out which excursions you want to do, how much travel you’re going to be doing by public transport, and decide which is the best rail pass for you.

I also have a Jungfrau Region travel guide, an e-book, which you might find helpful. So the link for that will be in the show notes as well, the show notes at holidaystoswitzerland.com/episode155.

Thanks very much for listening today. Hope today’s episode has helped you to understand how much you can fit into each day, just exactly what excursions make sense and how much time you’ll need to allow for them. There are plenty more things that you can do in the Jungfrau Region, so deciding, you know, what you can do when you’ve only got limited time can be difficult, so if I was visiting again for the very first time, these are the things that I would choose to do.

So I hope this episode has been helpful, and if it has, I’d be super grateful if you would share the episode with anyone you know who’s also planning a trip to Switzerland. Thanks again, and I’ll be back next week with more Swiss travel tips and inspiration for you. Until then, Tschuss!

You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.