MySwissAlps.com features ads, commercial and non-commercial Which base towns near Interlaken & Brig in June?
-
Hi,
We are 6 person family with 6 year old daughter planning to visit Switzerland in end of June for 7-8 days. We like hiking, interested in train rides, gondola etc. We prefer to stay at only 2 places- due to luggage transfers, changing trains, travel long with family, kids etc.
1. Interlaken and surrounding area for 3-4 days and Brig -glacier express for 3-4 days.
Which would be better place to stay as base and nice towns : Interlaken or Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald?
For last 3-4 night which would be better place to stay Betten or Brig Or Visp – Not only as base but also scenery/ restaurants etc. we would do Zermatt, glacier express, Andermatt, Bettmeralp while at Brig or Visp. I understand – I would have to skip St Moritz area.
Thanks!!
-
Some regular experts on this forum will suggest Wengen but I recommend Interlaken as a central base for getting around to the whole Berner Oberland area, not just Jungfrau area itself but Brienz, Meiringen, Thun and all the associated railways trips.
In the Valais canton aka Rhone valley you have a choice of Brig (large town but a decent place to stay) and as you have already mentioned Betten. However literally anywhere along the valley is convenient as there are stations at frequent intervals serving all the villages on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn (MGB).
Have a look at this MGB timetable PDF and pick a village!:
http://www.fahrplanfelder.ch/ fileadmin/fap_pdf_fiel ds/2019/142.pdf
The larger places with accomodation (although you may find farm/chalet etc accomodation in any village) are Fiesch, Lax, Mörel, Grengiols, Münster VS
Last thing to say is when you are based along the line of the MGB railway is: you won’t need to use the Glacier Express. Just use the local trains – much cheaper and a more genuine Swiss experience. And if you find accomodation in one of the smaller villages the train will stop at the village station.
Thanks a lot for reply!
I thought Wengen will be too many train changes -when I come from Brig to Wengen and then go to Zurich. I have a daughter and my parents will be traveling with us too. Also we would need door to door (door to airport) luggage services- would that be hard in Wengen? On other side interlaken is too busy town. So I thought Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald (one of them) would be better. Both have direct train to interlaken -correct?
Hi Naturetravel and welcome to MySwissAlps!
Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald would offer similar connections and are a nice compromise between Interlaken and Wengen I think. You can use the Swiss railways timetable to plan trips and see exact connection details: http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable
If I was planning on the Glacier Express trip I’d stay in Zermatt myself for sure. If you want to explore more of the canon of Valais, Brig is a nice town with great connections around the area, including on the Glacier Express as well as perhaps a trip to Kandersteg and Blausee (lake) etc.
- http://www.myswissalps.com/ze rmatt
- http://www.myswissalps.com/br ig
- http://www.myswissalps.com/gl acierexpress
I made a trip to the lake and Brig last year if you want to read about it here: http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/blausee-and-brig-2-days-1-night
HI Naturetravel
Many if not most of the hotels in Wengen will provide pickup of you and your luggage from the train station and return to train station free of charge. Unlike Interlaken, Grindelwald, and Lauterbrunnen, Wengen is a car free town which many think adds to it’s charm. Wengen is 1 train stop past Lauterbrunnen. Likely Wengen is a favorite because it has the best views, is small and quaint, and car free. It also is the most convenient for visiting Jungfraujoch.
The hotels in Interlaken, Grindelwald, and Lauterbrunnen may very well offer the same transportation services. Generally speaking Wengen, Grindelwald, and Lauterbrunnen all receive good reviews. Interlaken perhaps less so.
Mark
Sure- I will look at hotels at both places- Wengen and Grindelwald and decide. For Wengen- I could not find direct train from Interlaken. I would have change a train in between (that would be 3 train changes from zurich)
if I stay at Spiez in last 3 nights (instead of Brig) then trip from Wengen to Spiez would be easier. From Spiez- we can go to Zermatt one day and Andermatt second day.
re: time to visit- any major difference in mid June or end of June-in term of flowers, snow on mountain, melted snow making trails muddy, etc. (I understand weather is unpredictable and same in mid or end of June).
re: trains- MGB or other regular Swiss trains also have large windows, correct? Just not panoramic like glacier express.
thanks a lot! This is great forum, very useful info.
The train stations at Interlaken,Lauterbrunnen and Wengen are quite small and require very little walking, not at all like Zürich .
Early June may be a problem with snow at the higher elevations but perhaps not. I would say if you have a choice, go as late in June as you can. Mark
In my opinion, staying at Interlaken is a perfectly good idea. It is not a big place (population 5,000), and it is in the valley so all walking around town is on the level, which can be nice morning and evening, if you spend all day in the mountains. Also, it might sound silly but pure mountain villages can feel ‘too quiet’ ‘out of hours’
Remember. Switzerland is a small country – ‘moving on’ only as far as Spiez is a bit pointless in my view, it’s only 20 minutes by train from Interlaken – so you can actually do all the Berner Oberland day excursions (Jungfrau included) from Spiez.
My recommendation would be to stick to your original idea, and stay the 2nd half in a different area / canton (ie Valais)
Lastly, I recommend not wasting money on the special Panoramic trains – all Swiss trains have large windows and you can easily see the views.
- The thread ‘Which base towns near Interlaken & Brig in June?’ is closed to new replies.
