We awoke on this day of our holiday to Switzerland to glorious sunshine and blue skies so decided to drive the few miles along the road to the village of Grindlewald – a place so insanely beautiful it just has to be seen to be believed.
We seemed to be permanently in a state of amazement as we gazed around in all directions at some of the most picturesque natural sights we’ve ever seen.
The bright green hillsides against the backdrop of the dark mountains topped with brilliant white snow; the white-water rivers flowing down from the mountains and the bright blue sky behind it all… This whole part of Switzerland is just mind-blowing.
It was from here, at the Gridlewald railway station, that we bought our ‘Jungfrau Regional Passes‘ – lift passes that give you access to a wide variety of chairlifts, cable cars, trains and gondolas that criss-cross the mountainsides.
If you’re visiting the area for any longer than a day, you’ll really benefit from buying these as they give you access to all the main resorts and mountain destinations at a cheaper cost than paying for each lift individually.
We headed up the ‘Grindlewald Grund‘ lift and, after a bit of time exploring the area and views at the top of the lift, followed a relatively easy hiking trail all the way back down to Grindlewald village.
It was a walk of about 3-hours in total, including a stop for lunch (and increasingly frequent rest stops for the kids the longer it went on!)
As the children get older, it gets increasingly difficult to make them enthusiastic about long mountain hikes. Although they’ve grown up doing this kind of thing, when they were small there was a certain sense of excitement about getting to the summit of a mountain which distracted them from all the walking.
Nowadays it’s taking an increasing amount of bribery (the promise of multiple ice creams or ‘rest days’ doing something they’re more interested in) to get their co-operation.
But this walk from the top of the Grindlewald Grund lift back down to the town was one of the most beautiful we’ve ever done and was well worth the effort, even if when we arrived back at the car I’d got a parking ticket for over-staying the limit.
We agreed at the end of the day that even if every day for the rest of the holiday was rained off, just experiencing the awesome beauty of this place, in these perfect weather conditions, the whole holiday and epic journey here would still have been worthwhile.
Luckily that didn’t happen and there was plenty more days like these to come!
Details you’ll need
- Google Maps destination for Grindlewald Grund car park