Best centrally located place in Bernese Oberland

Hi, we are coming the 1st week in October 2016. Still trying to figure out details, will spend a night or 2 in either Zurich or Lucerne. Then head to Bernese Oberland area. What would be the best centrally located place in the Bernese Oberland region be that would provide everything as far as some city to see as well as obviously outdoor activities. (Heard interlaken is not worth seeing???)

Hi rainman,

Indeed Interlaken is not worth seeing. It's the surrounding region that's wonderful. The town itself is more practical (plenty of shops, good train connections) than beautiful. Please see myswissalps.com/ interlaken.

Spiez is a nice small town on Lake Thun. Centrally located and good views. The town of Thun is bigger and a bit further away from the mountains. And then there's Gstaad in the utmost west of the Bernese Oberland. Brienz is on Lake Brienz. Very good views too, but less central than Interlaken.

The choice depends on the area you want to focus on and whether facilities or nature is a bigger priority.

Hi Rainman,

We like staying in Thun - it's only about half an hour away by train from Interlaken and access to the alps and has excellent access to a wide variety of other destinations. e.g. 20 mins to Bern, a lovely interesting city, a day trip to Zermatt is easy, the Lotscberger line to Zweisimmen with connections to Montreux on the Golden Pass route, you can get to Saas-fee via Visp, there are direct trains to Basel, Zurich, Brig, Solothurn, Fribourg, connections via Bern to Geneva, Biel - in fact we travel all over from Thun and it's a pretty little city in its own right - not too touristy. There is a choice of three modes of transport between Thun and Interlaken, train along the south of the lake, bus along the north shore and boat across the lake itself.

Maggie

Arno & Maggie,

Thanks for the replies. Basically want the best of both worlds. There might be a day or 2 when we want to just hang around near the city because the weather but for the most part (70%) we want to be close enough to visit Jungfraujoch, shilthorn, & maybe get to Zermatt, Matterhorn

Hi rainman,

Well, all these towns are pretty close together. Even though Interlaken is not that pretty, it is a convenient place to stay, and a 20 minute train ride gets you to Lauterbrunnen, amidst the mountains. Likewise, Brienz and Spiez are only 20 minutes from Interlaken, on a lake and close to mountains too. Thun is the biggest town of the mentioned ones and about an hour from Lauterbrunnen. The boat ride Maggie mentioned is wonderful.