Mountains of Grindelwald

During my stay in Switzerland in the summer of 2021, I had a paradisiacal long weekend in and around the village of Grindelwald. It turned out to be a weekend with almost magical experiences, of staying in the scenic village of Grindelwald, hiking on a glacier for two days, staying in a remote mountain hut on a ledge overlooking the glacier, finishing the picturesque 20 kms Schynige Platte hike and spending the last day idling around the stunning villages of Lauterbrunnen and Wengen. I think it was this weekend that made me realise how striking and spectacular the beauty of Switzerland was. And Grindelwald is part of those memories that I will always remember.


Getting there

As was the norm when in Switzerland, I took the train from Lausanne to get to Grindelwald. The first train was to Bern, then to Interlaken and the last was the mountain train up to Grindelwald. The ride to Bern was different than the other train travels I had done before. We rode through rolling lush green hills, dotted with bright and colourful houses with red roofs, and dark green woods in between. It also did not feel like a mountain ride, it still felt like being in the plains, just extremely fresh and angelic. This turned out to be a surprisingly picturesque train ride.

The next highlight was the ride all along the Thunersee lake of Interlaken. Interlaken has the reputation of being a tourist town and is quite often, disregarded by serious tourists. But even that was so fabulous – the long ride along the lake, the sun and blue skies, the alpine houses and all the people enjoying themselves in the water or around it. I actually thought to myself, if this is the kind of place which is placed in the ‘to be avoided’ category in Switzerland, they have very high standards 😀.

On the way to Grindelwald

The next and the last train from Interlaken was through a valley with small villages, all the way to Grindelwald. All the villages were charming, but I have to say that Grindelwald takes the cake. It is in a wide valley with houses going all the way up the mountain side. And it felt like all the houses were surrounded by lush bright green meadows – for me this was the simplest and most magnificent view of the village. I really wanted to just walk around these houses but that didn’t happen. Also at night, most of the lights of these houses were switched off. So I guess most of them may be summer houses.

Grindelwald

And on three sides of the valley were these giant and bare gray mountains, towering above the village, all around. They felt really massive and all overpowering, but so so fascinating in their strength. Also, you couldn't see the mountains all the time, as quite often the peaks were covered by clouds. There were some huts on top of these mountains which shone at night when their lights were on till late. It never let you forget how high they are. Also, the mountains shone even at night, the snow on them glowed till very late.

It’s a feeling to be experienced – you feel you are safe and secure with the mountains all around. But at the same time, you also feel so small and miniscule in front of the grandness of nature. I had that feeling as soon as I reached Grindelwald, and the feeling stayed with me for the next 4 days.

We stayed at the Grinderlderhof hotel for the night, which was near the station. It was a nice cute hotel but nothing much to write home about. There were a lot more restaurants on the main street as Grindelwald seemed like a popular tourist location. There were loads of Indians around too, so it was definitely popular. As we had the evening free, we had a nice dinner at C and M café and for me, just the view of the mountains around was enough to enjoy it. It had a terrace from where we could see the other side of the valley as well as all the high peaks around. And just being there felt like we had come to another world already.


Trekking on Aletsch Glacier

Our first two days in Grindelwald were spent trekking across Aletsch Glacier, with Grindelwald sports. And what a mind-blowing experience that was. Grindelwald Sports say this about the hike on their website, ”… winding an impressive 23km from the famous peaks of the Jungfrau Region down to the Valais. This massive ice flow, shredded with deep crevasses, lined with moraines, and surrounded by 4000m peaks, lies in the heart of the Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage site”. And that was exactly what we experienced.

Grindelwald from
the gondola

We had an extremely early start, and took the first gondola up to the Eiger mountain. It was quite a stunning ride up there, and I got to see all those houses on the meadows from up top😊. While going up, we noticed a single large very dark gray cloud along the Eiger (which looked weird). It seemed to not be moving at all. I wonder how that was formed.

 

Eiger glacier

Soon we went above the clouds and stopped at the Kleine Scheidegg, where we could see the Eiger glacier. From there, we took a train to the Jungfrau peak which was all the way through a tunnel in the moutain and took us to the top to Jungfraujoch. The view from the top was pretty and we spent a bit of time just exploring around and reading about it. There is a display of old photos when the tunnel was built which is quite inspirational. On the top, I also saw the famed Indian restaurant of DDLJ fame offering pure vegetarian thalis, which is well known among us Indians. It was closed now though because of corona.

We met our mountain guide who split us into 2 groups and we got onto the snow to get ready. We tied the harness to each of us, and then off we went behind him, along the glacier. Surprisingly, he didn’t brief us at all which I felt wasn’t the right way to go. For a lot of people, being on a glacier is a new and different experience. And it felt like we were thrown in the deep end without a clue. But anyways, we were able to learn as we walked along.

The weather on the whole trek was sunny and warm and it definitely made our walk a lot more enjoyable. We could see the scenery, and didn’t have to wear too many layers. It actually felt quite hot at times.

Smaller crevasses
to jump

Our group were all tied with the harness to each other for safety and we walked in a single file, and at the same pace. For the first half of the trek, we were getting down the Jungfrau mountain. It was the start of the glacier and covered in snow. It sometimes got a bit tricky to walk so fast down the steep snow and I fell a few times too. As we were walking, we saw some crevasses too but they were not too large today. But we still had to jump over a few of them which felt scary even if the gap was less than a feet. I would always stop before one, take a deep breath and then jump over. But overall, the walk was quite comfortable.

View of the glacier

Once we were down the mountain, it was flatter (this area was called Konkordiaplatz) and we were just walking on snow, slowly but surely. We stopped at times where there were rocks, for a quick snack or water, but generally just kept walking on. Its in Konkordiaplatz where we saw and learnt most about what glaciers are about. There were so many snow and ice structures to see, it was quite interesting all along. We walked past some icicles on the snow. Sometimes, we heard loud sounds made by crevasses falling off the glacier somewhere, but we could not see where it was happening.

Rivers on the glacier

In the middle of the trek, we saw sand from a recent storm from the Sahara give a brownish tinge to the snow, and further down, the snow had a pinkish tinge due to pink algae living there. There were rivers of water crisscrossing the surface. And some of these rivers were falling down holes which could be 100s of meters deep. We tested the depth of a few of these by throwing rocks in. And some of them were so deep, we couldn't even hear the sound of the rocks falling into the water, deep down. When we were looking down these holes, we had to be so careful so that only one person could stand there peering down, while the rest of us stayed far off. So if someone fell inside, the rest could stop the fall (hopefully). The whole thought was very scary though, how close we were from danger. 

River going down
a glacier hole

At one point, we saw a trekker from another group walking a few meters from us fall into a waterhole! Thankfully everyone was tied, so he was safe, and the fall was controlled. But it was a scary moment, and it made us realise how much we were playing with danger, which we didn’t feel earlier as it felt like we were just walking on the snow. Glaciers are different and hold so much within them, it is intriguing. And most of us don’t know much about them anyways.

As we walked deeper into the platz, we saw two other glaciers flowing down from the mountains on both sides and combining with the Aletsch glacier. The glaciers were very clearly demarcated, as on both sides of each of the glaciers, there are always loads of rocks flowing down the mountains.These flowing rivers of rocks are called moraines. Its like they draw the boundaries of their own glacier and can be seen from far away. These moraines hold a lot of information and are an interesting topic of study for scientists. 

We stopped for breaks mostly along these moraines, as some of the rocks there were huge enough to serve as a table for our lunch. On one such stops, our guide went out looking for small herbs to take back with him – schnapps, which are used to make the schnapps drinks! Surprisingly, there were some small plants growing here and there on the glacier. Wonder how. We also saw loads of birds flying above us, all of whom live on the snow. Its impressive how animals evolve and can survive even in such difficult terrains.

While we were walking, we were also visited by a few fighter jets who were practicing flying over the glacier! They came in from one side, flew deep in the valley and swooshed over our heads before continuing on their sorties. It was quite interesting to see them as they skillfully and loudly flew past our heads into oblivion.

Our hut on the ledge

When we were in Konkordiaplatz, we could see the Konkordia mountain hut where we would spend the night. It was on a mountain ledge far off, and it still took us a few hours to get there after spotting it for the first time. Towards the end, we got off the glacier and had to climb up the steep cliff on metal steps to get to the hut. It was the last part of the hike and quite tough indeed. Reaching the hut though made it all worth it. 

Hut terrace

The mountain hut had a terrace with a magnificent view, built on a rock ledge above the glacier. It overlooked the three glaciers all coming down their mountains and flowing as one, separated by moraines. We spent a nice evening enjoying the view, eating snacks and swapping stories on how the experience had been. We had ended up walking a bit more than 9 kms on the day, with a walking time of around 3 hours, while the total trip had taken us about 5 hours. 

We saw and captured the glacier in different lights – dusk, sunset and then under the stars. It got cold very soon, so we had a cosy meal eating the simple but hot and tasty dinner the hostel staff had cooked. We chatted with our group, most of whom were Germans (looks like Switzerland is a popular hiking destination for them). They all seemed to be well travelled, having done such glacier treks before. After dinner, we sat outside for a bit, looking at the stars on a clear night. There were a few more huts on the nearby mountains too and we saw their lights twinkling at night. But it got chilly very quickly and I called in an early night as we had another 6am start the next morning.

Glaciers at dusk

The mountain hut was quite well maintained for the location it was in. It was quite basic in its amenities. There was no running water there. The rooms were shared and had bunk beds. There was an outside terrace and not much else. There were very few spots to charge our phones, but they had wifi in the common areas! For where we were though, it still felt like real luxury. Apparently food and other deliveries were dropped there by helicopters regularly. The staff also had to walk a few hours from Jungfrau every time they wanted to come here. And I thought to myself, one really needed to enjoy something like this to be able to do it every week. The whole atmosphere in the hut was very jolly and lively. There were loads of guests, all in high spirits which made it fun. 

Morning on Aletsche glacier

The next morning, we had an early start around 6am and left the hut to walk more on the glacier before heading back to civilisation. The colours of the glacier during sunrise was quite spectacular to wake up to. The first part of the hike was getting down the mountain, through a steep rocky path. It was quite risky and scary, and we all took our time to get down. At the same time, there were a lot of groups leaving, so all the groups maintained a gap of 15 mins to avoid traffic jams on the way down.

Steep climb down

After we got down, we crossed two moraines to get to the last glacier and walked on it for the rest of our time on the snow as it had the least dangerous crevasses. The sun was up and much of the surface had got icy, so we all wore crampons on our shoes which was quite a new experience for me. It helped us walk on the snow comfortably as the metal spikes dug into the ice and provided a better grip.

 

Giant Crevasses

Today felt like a hike dependent on the skills of our guide to navigate and get us to where we were going. The crevasses were quite huge and we had to walk around lot of them to get to a place where we could safely jump. Even then, we had to cross some very large crevasses and at times had to depend on the crampons getting us a grip as we jumped. Our guide at times had to use his snow axe to create steps for us in the ice to step on. He had to use his knowledge of the glacier to decide what path to take, where to step, and where not. He also showed us some insects, called glacier flea which live in the freezing waters of the glacier. And just like that our glacier walk was over as we got off and turned towards green land.

The depth of the Aletsch glacier is about 1 km and it moves at a speed of 200 metres per year. On the sides of the flowing glaciers, we could see lines along the mountains up to where the glacier had been, 100 years ago. And that gives an idea how much the glaciers have melted and reduced over the years. Our guide told us that the Aletsch glacier has been receding every year and current estimates suggest that in 50 years, there may not be any snow left, but just a lake in its place. Hope that doesn’t happen in my lifetime 😧.

Leaving the glacier

Anyways, as we got off the snow, we stopped on the rocks to have lunch in the sun before heading off for a few more kms of hiking before we could reach a gondola to get down to the train. And as soon as we got off, the colours and views changed drastically. We walked past a few lakes, surrounded by wild white flowers. It felt like such a welcome change after the tough white glacier landscape of the last two days. And suddenly it felt so less hostile. We then kept walking for a few hours, through hills, valleys with some picturesque villages, a long tunnel and so on, enjoying the greener side of Swiss beauty. We also saw lot of people paragliding in the valley and I really felt like doing it soon.

As we were walking through the mountains, we saw a helicopter rescuing someone from the forest. They dropped off the medical attendant who went into the forest, found the injured person and tied him to the rope dropped by the helicopter so they could lift him off. It felt quite a skilled operation to me but apparently such helicopter rescues are quite common in Switzerland. It was sad to see someone being hurt, but on the other hand the rescue felt straight out of a movie, especially how the pilot was manoeuvring the helicopter in such a difficult terrain. Later, we also saw a few helicopters helping construction of a house where they were coming and dropping material for the building. Life must be quite tough in the mountains here, right? Sometimes we forget that aspect when we travel here as tourists for short times.

When we reached the gondola in the village of Fiesch, at the end of our hike, we had lunch in the sun, also patting ourselves for a hike well accomplished😊. We had walked 16kms today, walking for about 5 hours over an 8 hour hike. And then we were off, taking 4 different trains to get back to Grindelwald, on the highly efficient Swiss train system!

The hike had been an excellent experience, but I must say that I was not impressed with the guide. We would have enjoyed a lot more if he showed some more interest in how everyone was faring, shared more information about glaciers and allowed us some time to enjoy being there. It felt like he thought his only job was to get us from point a to point b. 

He just didn't give us any tips on what to expect and what to do, how to navigate glaciers or anything like that. And that was a bit scary. He behaved as if everyone in the group was an expert glacier climber like him already. He didn’t slow down while walking, didn't look back while walking to check if others were still following him and didn’t even stop enough for people to take photos. Most of our group were trying to take photos while walking, and many didn’t as it was too dangerous to do that. His comment when some people asked him to slow down was that falls and slips happen on the glaciers, and that everyone should treat it like walking on the street 😲. Definitely not very helpful advice. He also didn't explain much about the glacier and the landscape as I would expected on such a long walk.

It felt like he was on a mission - to get us to the hut at the fastest pace, and that’s it. Enjoying what we were doing wasn’t part of his thought process. I can understand that for him, being on a glacier was nothing new. But for someone experiencing this for the first (and maybe even the last) time, it holds much more importance. So it would have been good to have some more interest from him. He was surely not a good guide for someone walking on the glacier for the first time. But still, the glacier did not disappoint – it was spectacular, and a once in a lifetime experience for me.

Back in Grindelwald, we checked in to the Tsuggen hotel for the next 2 nights, which was another cute little place with very helpful staff. We treated ourselves to a tasty Indian dinner at the Golden Indian, to celebrate the successful hike😊. During the dinner, we saw a procession passing through the village with the locals carrying and blowing large Swiss bells. Apparently it’s a Swiss tradition to mark the cows coming back down after summer – Descent of the cows. And then we called it a day, as we had another (!) early morning start the next day too.


Schynige Platte

Train to Schynige

The next day, we did another long hike of about 19 kms along the Schynige Platte, a long mountain ridge with breath taking views. My friend had tried to do this trek thrice but hadn’t been able to complete the hike before because of snow and/or bad weather. But today, the weather was perfect – warm, sunny and cloudless. And we got our perfect day for traversing this stunning mountain ridge.

Top of Schynige Platte

We started early morning and first took a train back to Wilderswil (I think) near Interlaken, from where we took a mountain train up to Schynige Platte which was the start of our trek. The mountain train was very slow but breathtakingly picturesque. It chugged along the steep edges of the mountains, taking us through forests with some magnificent views of Interlaken and its two lakes. On the top, there was a restaurant and some gardens which worth visiting. From there, we started on our long trek around 830 am.

Interlaken and the lakes

First we walked along the top of the mountain while enjoying panoramic views of Interlaken and the two lakes. And on the other side, there were just mountains after mountains.

Views on the trek

Then we passed through some gorgeous small valleys all on top of the hills. There were cows eating in these grasslands, and the sounds of the cowbells were everywhere, providing a background to our trek. It was a scene and feeling that can only be experienced – surrounded by lush green mountains filled with green grass and wild flowers, cowbells ringing, the sun shining and the air as fresh as a cucumber. Wow.

Sagistalsee lake

We then took a turn and walked all around the Sägistalsee lake. It is quite a scenic lake, in a rectangular shape, down in the valley. And all around there were wildflowers as it was still summer.

Lunch stop

After the lake, we turned and then walked through some high mountain peaks on the side, and then crossed over towards the other mountains through a ledge. There was a restaurant at the crossover point which provided a welcome break after walking so long in the sun.

Wildlife :)

Along this path, there were more cows and some of them just sat lazily, chewing and staring at the trekkers going by.

Bachalpsee lake

And our next stop was the famous and spectacular lake, Bachalpsee. We could see it from far and slowly came closer, seeing new angles to it. It was truly an fascinating sight – this bright blue lake surrounded by lush green hills, reflecting the high snow covered peaks across the valley. And by now, the crowds had also become huge. It turned out, that there was a direct gondola from Grindelwald to First from where you just have to walk some 20-30 mins to get to the lake. While we had walked 7 hours to get here! There were also loads more Indian tourists here, and I knew I was in the popular part of Switzerland😊.

On the trail

Near the end, we also did the cliff walk to get a view of the mountains down. There were tens of people paragliding here among the mountains, and it was quite fascinating to see them all float almost weightlessly in the air. We also saw another helicopter rescue today. It is good to see that the Swiss have such an amazing infrastructure to get people out of mountains in case of emergency. But its scary too, to see how many people get hurt – we ended up seeing three such rescues on this trip.

Paragliding

We finally reached First (which was the end of the trek) around 5 pm, which was quite before the last gondola down. There were long queues of people waiting to go down the gondola, but thankfully we made it to it. As after the 5 lakes trail, I avoided walking down all the way back as those walks are extremely long, and not too scenic either.

Wildflowers

This trek was one of my favourite ones and I totally enjoyed it. The greenery, the fabulous lakes, the gorgeous scenes, the colourful wild flowers, the lazy cows with their cowbells – everything was amazing.

Avocado restaurant view

When we came back to Grindelwald, we had a lot of spare time at hand, so we walked around the town a bit. We saw some people yoodleing in the streets, which was fun to watch. We realised restaurants closed early here by 9pm. So we searched for some place open till later, and finally managed to get dinner at Avocado and Barrys lounge. And Avocado had a fabulous view when sitting outside.


Lauterbrunnen

Grindelwald in the morning

On the last day of our long weekend, we decided to take it easy and woke up a bit later than the last few days. We decided to spend the day idling in Lauterbrunnen. When we left in the morning and walked through Grindelwald, I fell in love with the village again. It looked so charming in the morning when its streets were empty and all you could see and feel was the nature around. The natural beauty of the village was more visible than when it was full of crowds. It had rained at night, and the village felt even fresher than before. It later rained in bits and pieces during the day, so we had to do our activities also in stops and starts.

the Lauterbrunnen valley

We took a few trains to get to the valley of Lauterbrunnen which is a village known for its 76 waterfalls. It is a wide verdant valley surrounded by mile high mountain cliffs on both sides. Supposedly 76 waterfalls fall down into the village from those high mountains. Once we got off the train, we just started walking along the valley, and along all the waterfalls. We could see some of them falling from high above, though lot of them were dry as it was late summer already. These waterfalls are quite popular with ice climbers in winter, when they freeze up. And these daredevils climb the frozen ice, to go up the mountains!

Lauterbrunnen

The whole walk and the village was so utterly divine, so heavenly! There was a surrealness in the valley which we felt within the first 5 mins of being there.And just like that, we kept walking along the stream in the village. We passed by the waterfalls, gorgeous alpine houses, streams with gushing water, vibrant green forests on so on. We bought some fudge from one of the self serve selling booths. And saw the ripe apples on lot of the trees here. We just enjoyed the serenity and breathtaking beauty of the place. And it is because of its serenity Lauterbrunnen is said to be the inspiration for the elvish place of Rivendell in Lord of Rings – a place of eternal peace and charm.

Waterfall in the
background

And then out of nowhere it started raining again. We were thinking of going to Murren but then decided to take the train to Wengen. It is a small village located on a cliff where the only way to reach is by taking the mountain railway. We took the train up from Lauterbrunnen, enjoying some majestic views along the way. The village was small and we walked around a bit. It was very quiet, and felt peaceful. We stopped at a restaurant for coffee, and I ran into an MBA friend of mine I hadn’t met for 10 years. What a small world we live in now, isn’t it?

And then soon it was time for us to leave the heavenly world of Grindelwald. We took a train back to pick up our luggage, and then started the long trek back to Lausanne. It turned out that this day we had ended up taking 10 trains in total! But it did not feel tiring at all.

It was raining in Interlaken and somehow it did not look as pretty as on the way up – things look so different with gray clouds and rains. Also we saw a lot of Swiss army soldiers travelling in the trains – this had happened the last Sunday too. Wonder why. I had to get out in Bern and take a connecting bus from the city – it looked like a nice cute town. The ride back from Freiburg to Lausanne was again spectacular. It was the golden hour and all the red roof houses on the way were glowing with the golden light. It almost felt like the Tuscany photos we see on travel websites. I loved the ride back as much as I did the way there. And it was a nice way to wrap up the trip.


It had turned out to be an extremely enjoyable weekend, where we stretched ourselves a lot and enjoyed every minute of it. I think Switzerland is a mindblowing place, and I can see myself coming back here regularly.

Other Switzerland posts from this stay

Mountains of Zermatt

Living the swiss life in Lausanne

Summer weekend in Geneva

Swiss summer weekend in Geneva

During my month in Switzerland last year, I spent a few days living and working in Geneva before heading inland. It was a short 5 day stay, and the city was interesting – smallish but with everything you need. It was a grand city, full of financial institutions and lots of watch shops. The highlight for me though was the time I spent around Lake Leman which was kind of most of what I did. And enjoyed totally!


Around Lake Leman

I flew in to Geneva and took the (free) train to the city centre where I stayed the next few days. The city felt quite overwhelming to me. It has lesser population than Amsterdam, but still the hustle bustle felt more. The buildings are bigger, especially the banks; the streets are grander, and there are so many people, very diverse too. It took me long to get used to this fast pace of life again!

Along the Lake

As I was living 5 mins walking from the Lake, the next few days I mostly explored the area around the Lake every evening after work (when it wasn’t raining of course). I went for walks around the lake in every direction and it was all quite gorgeous. And hot! The weather was sunny and quite hot, which sometimes made getting out during the afternoon tough. But the evenings were warm and more comfortable.

Sunset on Lake Leman

The lake is huge and even has beaches used in summer. It is full of birds – swans, ducks and so on. The Geneva fountain also adds to its charm anywhere you look. All around the lake, there is a path to walk which I explored in both directions. When I walked along the south side, there were a few gardens where you could run or just enjoy being in greenery. The other direction took you towards the city centre and the Rhone river which was more full of tourists.

Once I walked on the north side and had dinner there, with the setting sun across the lake. There I saw the richer and posher part of Geneva with the larger houses and greener areas. The sunsets across the lake was quite captivating, all the hues of the sunset in the sky reflecting on the water. And all the grand buildings across the water adding to the background. It was also very refreshing walking along the lake, with the mountains on the other side making you feel that you are closer to nature than you actually were.

Next to the Rhone

Every evening, I ate at some picturesque restaurant and enjoyed the fresh mountain air here. The first evening, I had dinner at the Little Kitchen, sitting next to the gushing waters of the river Rhone. There was something magical about that river, its jade green colour somehow felt very refreshing. And the sunset colours on the buildings around at this time felt heavenly.


City centre

Church in Old Town

On the weekend, in between the rain, I walked around the old town of Geneva. Its on top of a hill and has the typical grand European buildings. Walking through here, I also realised that after staying a few months in Amsterdam, such buildings overwhelm me now😊.

Stained glass

I walked into the local Gothic church and was impressed with its stained glass paintings. As the light filtered in through the glass, it created some gorgeous images. And the roof was painted so intricately, there was something magical about it.

In the evening I visited a friend nearby and it turns out her house was 5 mins walking from France. Apparently though she lives in Switzerland, her gym is in France! This is something I find so difficult to imagine, living so close to a country’s border.


Swiss Day

One of the weekend days turned out to be Swiss National Day when they all celebrate the formation of their country. There were many events planned all day – fairs, shows, concerts, shows etc - and I took part in some of the festivities. I decided to go to a music performance at the Bateau Geneve which is a huge boat on the lake. There was a huge crowd and there were performances by different Swiss groups all day. Everyone just sat there eating and drinking all day. It was a lot of fun, with a lot of laughing and enjoyment.

Swiss Day celebrations

I saw only part of the show, first two musicians in Swiss attire who were singing folk songs. Then two other singers who were great dancers too singing (and dancing to) songs making fun of the Swiss. It was nice to see how they and the crowd could laugh at themselves! Like how they sell arms to the whole world even though there has never ever been any war in Switzerland; how the Swiss don’t like the Arabs but are ok with their money😊, and then some songs about the Pope, local politicians and so on. As the songs were in French, I didn’t understand them, and someone on my table had to keep explaining them to me. But it was still good to be part of the gay celebrations that day.

Lake at night

After that, I walked to see a sound and light show on the lake which went on late in the night. And then the fireworks came out! The pandemic was still going on, so I was being careful not to go to any of the indoor events. But still, it felt good to be part of this day and spend the day with the locals. I also met a few people during these shows who told me more about their country. It was fun.


List of other things to do

Here is a list of things to do if you have more time in the city, though I didn’t get to do it:

Museums/Tours: Red Cross museum, UN tour, CERN tour

Areas to explore:

• Carouge: super artsy area in Geneva. Worth a walk around on the weekend
• Boat to Yvoire, a small medieval town in France
• Hike to Seleve, with views over Geneva
• Jonction walk

Restaurants:

• Bains des Paquis: Must visit place in Geneva, beach with a restaurant
• Parfum de Beiruth: Super cheap Lebanese place that all of Geneva goes to
• Khora: fancy delicious Greek place with seats outside
• Bateau Geneve: Eat on a boat that does not move
• Brasserie Lipp: fancy French brasserie

By the way, it’s important to know that shops close at 7pm everyday and don’t open all weekend. So one needs to buy things in advance to survive😊.


Geneva is mostly about finance and watches. It’s a big city, and though the lake adds to its natural charm, and it has a lot of historical/cultural things to do, it’s still not the feel you expect from being in Switzerland. So after a few days here, I was already itching to be in the mountains, in a more remote place, in the real Switzerland. And soon left for Lausanne…

Other Switzerland posts from this stay

Mountains of Zermatt

Mountains of Grindelwald

Living the swiss life in Lausanne

Mountains of Zermatt

During my summer month in Switzerland in 2021, I spent a long weekend in the mountains around the town of Zermatt. It was my introduction to hiking in Switzerland and I had a very active weekend. Though the highlight for me was Switzerland's ethereal beauty. The town of Zermatt is quite touristy, and picturesque by itself. With a river flowing through it, the lush green hills all around dotted with alpine houses, the clear blue skies making it all sparkle and the iconic Matterhorn mountain standing guard over it.

The Matterhorn

We spent the weekend doing two long treks - the 5 lakes walk and the glacier trail, and then explored the area around the mountain hamlet of Furi. The trekking was very strenuous but extremely rewarding. And the views throughout the weekend were spectacular. It was this weekend that I finally discovered for myself why Switzerland was the popular background choice in all the old Bollywood movies 😊.


Getting to Zermatt

The train network in Switzerland is very efficient - you can take trains from anywhere to anywhere and the connections work like clockwork. I also learnt how much of a stickler the Swiss are for their rules. I was using the SBB app for the train ride, switching the app on and off when getting on and off trains. The app calculates the fare automatically based on the GPS location. And the ticket checker fined me for starting the app 2 mins late, on a 4 hour journey! I laugh at it now, but at that time it was quite shocking.

We took an early morning train from Lausanne, changing to a mountain train at Visp, reaching Zermatt before noon. This train journey as every other train ride in the country was stunning. The train chugged though vibrant green valleys, lined with huge mountains on both sides, dotted with alpine houses. Near the city of Sion, we even saw a chateau on the hills. The whole ride was so enchanting, it was like already being in a fairy tale. 

In between though, we would see some modern buildings which felt out of place and even looked ugly when superimposed against such gorgeous backgrounds (even though that’s how most cities in the plains look like). At those times, I felt that such modern rectangular buildings made of glass and cement should be banned in Switzerland, for spoiling the beauty of this land. And only wooden alpine houses should be allowed here 😊.

At Visp, we changed to a mountain train which went through a valley to get to Zermatt. All along this valley were a few picturesque villages, very small and oh so cute. St Niklaus among those was really inviting. All along the train line was the road with cars driving to Zermatt, though in Zermatt no cars are allowed. We could see people walking along the rivers and into the mountains from the train itself. There were some ponies also wandering in the valley. By this time, I was already itching to be up in the mountains in all the bright green scenery. 

 

Zermatt

When we reached Zermatt, it almost felt like a huge town, not at all like the small villages we had ridden through. All around were flowers in all colours hanging from the alpine huts. Its main street was full of shops and tourists. Some were getting ready to go summer skiing, some hiking, lots were going mountain biking, and some were just shopping. It looked like Zermatt is a hive of activity, both in summer and winter. It was buzzing with activity all around. And we surely would have been able to enjoy a lot more if the pandemic was not still around.

River Vispa

After we crossed the main street, we walked along the Matter Vispa which flows through the town. It had gushing cold gray water, splashing furiously down the valley. It added quite a character to the town. After the river, we started walking up to our hotel, the Sonnmatten Boutique hotel, in the neighbouring village of Sonnmatten. As Zermatt is a no car zone, we decided to walk up the 20 mins to the hotel (we didn’t know then that the buses in the city are all free). It was quite a steep climb and felt quite tough to walk up with all out luggage - quite a sign of things to come soon😊 as this is howthe next 3 days turned out to be.

Hammock at hotel

Our hotel was a small place, very comfortable and with a gorgeous view of the mountains around. It also had a hammock overlooking the town which felt amazing every morning and evening😊. After quickly exploring the place and checking in, we left very quickly on our first hike of the weekend. My friend had planned the best walks for our weekend, and she was the guide directing us during the hikes. Its also a good idea to get the local app – Switzerland Mobility for the hikes as that has all the relevant information needed.


5 lakes walk

The first hike we did was the 5 lakes walk. The actual walk is shorter, as you can take a gondola to the starting point and then visit the 5 lakes. Though we decided to not take the gondola and walked up the mountain to get to the first lake. And what a day it turned out to be – we walked for a total of 22 kms over 10 hours, with all the breaks and everything. Ascending more than 1100 meters over the day.

The first half of the trek was through the forests, going up the mountain. It was sunny and extremely warm, so we had a ball during the day. The Matterhorn was visible from most of the trek, and I think we kept photographing it too all through the day. It is quite an imposing mountain and its tough to avoid it. Also we noticed that there are clouds stuck next to the Matterhorn most of the day, its tough to catch it without clouds next to it.

We saw a few people doing paragliding next to the Matterhorn, and I really felt like doing that too, though I didn’t find time to do that. Also there were children on the hikes, lot of mountain bikes and also some people running up the mountain, which would not have been easy, as even walking up was tiring!

The views all through the trek were spectacular – valleys, mountains, greenery, rocky landscapes and so on. Everywhere you looked, it was gorgeous. It is very tough to explain all we saw and experienced. As it is in all treks. Some of the photos can capture the beauty of the looks around, but none can capture the feeling of being on top of a mountain, looking all around you and seeing nature in its full glory. You just have to be there to feel and understand it.

Leisee lake

Anyways, we kept walking on the trek, going up and down mountains visiting each of the lakes one by one. All were similar but still different in their look and feel. The first lake was Leisee, which had reflections of the Matterhorn. It was full of crowds and people were swimming in the water. We had no idea that could be done, else we would have gone swimming too. We had lunch on the sides of the lake, then walked the loop to the other 4 lakes. In between we also stopped at one of the restaurants for a quick snack. And I must say, these stops were always so welcome after walking so much!

Moosjisee

Moosjisee had a very different blue green colour to it and less people around it. It was a small lake and looked quite exquisite because of its colour. The third, Grunsee had some steep climbs before it and was not that spectacular. The fourth lake, Grindjisee was a small lake hidden in the bushes and quite empty. But as we walked around it, we took some impressive shots from there.

Grindjisee

The trek to the last lake had some very steep parts and by that time I was also extremely exhausted. We also realised that the last gondola down from there would had already left, so we had a long long walk back down the mountain to get back to Zermatt. We were thinking if we should give the lake a miss or not, but decided to push ourselves more anyways.

Stellisee

This last lake was the Stellisee, the largest of these 5 lakes, with reflections of the Matterhorn as well as a guest house in a mountain next to it. We could also see some of the fishes in the lake here. There were a few tents around the lake as people were camping there. I wondered how tough it would have been to carry all the camping equipment all the way up, but would totally be worth it to be able to spend a night in such a location. It was quite a scenic view and we would have stayed there longer if we weren’t in a hurry to get back home.

Going back down from here to Zermatt was quite a long trek, it took us 3 hours. And we realised it is sunnier up in the mountains longer than in the villages down in the valley. So even though it felt like it would be sunny for longer, it changed very quickly. The first part had some light but the second part was completely in the night, thankfully though the full moon was out. The first part was a clearly marked trail. We saw lots of marmots on this trail, as well as some black nosed sheep and wild goat or deer (not really sure). 

After the marked trail ended, we were a bit confused, sometimes following the app and sometimes the markings on the turns. Sometimes we walked through the forests, sometimes through narrow steep paths, and sometimes some barely visible trails. I was a bit scared, but people were still cycling down and trekking up, at that time of the day. Clearly the mountains are not as scary as I think of them to be.

Matterhorn viewpoint

When we were almost down, we could see the lights of Zermatt come into view. We did feel a lot more comfortable after that. I started noticing how beautiful the stars looked in the night sky. And we came to a viewpoint from where you can catch a view of the Matterhorn behind all the twinkling lights of Zermatt. It was quite a good view to end our trail at, given how worrying the last few hours had been.

We finally reached Zermatt about 10pm and we were completely exhausted. We had dinner in town at Le Chalet, as one of the few restaurants open after 10. It was a cosy place with great tasting food. And then we walked up to our hotel again at night. (Climbing never ends in the mountains, right?)

I loved this trail and would definitely recommend it. It was quite strenuous though and the coming back late at night is avoidable. Still it was totally worth it for enjoying the untouched and delightful beauty of the Swiss Alps. The lakes were gorgeous and so were all the stunning views everywhere, especially with the Matterhorn being so omnipresent.


Glacier trail

The second day we did a glacier trail which was very different from the first day (another link to the trail). The 5 lakes was a green and fresh trail through forests and valleys, while today was through bare and rocky landscape left behind by the glaciers. This trek covers the area where glaciers had come to in the 1850s but then have retreated and left behind plants and rocks very different from elsewhere.

Towards Hornlihutte

We took a gondola up to Schwarzee and then did the 10 km trail to the Trockener Steg gondola which we then took to come back down. We ascended a total of 650 kms during the hikes, walking for about 6 hours in total. During the first half of the trail, we took a detour to go up towards the Hörnlihütte hut on the Matterhorn. People looking to climb the Matterhorn go to this hut and then walk up, while some just do a 2 day trek up to the hut and back. But we just did a part of it to see the Matterhorn more up and close😊. It was an extremely steep hike up the mountain, and at one point we had to walk on a narrow metal platform to cross the mountain. It was fun to get closer to it but then we had to turn around if we wanted to make the gondola down on time this time.

Stony valley

Then we continued through the glacier trail, which first went down to the river into the stony valley, and then up again all along the retreating glacier to the next gondola. The landscape here was bare - huge grey rocks everywhere, some lakes, lot of gravel and the mountains covered with snow even in summer. We could see some people skiing here even now, in the summer. This trail is open very rarely, only when the ice melts just enough to walk.

Rocky landscape

The area was bare of any plants, and its beauty was in all the interesting rock features in different shapes, sizes and colours. These are all rocks left behind by the retreating glaciers. And there were many lakes along the trek, each more exquisite than the last one. These mountain lakes are all glacier remnants and have a light blue colour, lot of them reflecting the Matterhorn. It was quite spectacular all along. And as usual, this trek too is something to be experienced. It is very difficult to explain how it actually was to walk along it. 

And I was exhausted, really. Surprisingly, lot of kids and even dogs were doing the hike. We also ran into a few people in their 60s and 70s doing the Matterhorn hike! And there were people biking along the route too – it was quite a crowded hike. So what is a great achievement for me is kind of like a daily walk for the Swiss😊.

View from gondola

We just made it to the gondola before the last one left (why do the last ones leave so early at 430?). We finally made it down to Zermatt on time today. So we explored the town a bit. We shopped for some hiking gear, and then had a lovely and tasty dinner at Golden India.


Revived by the food, we came back to the viewpoint to take a photo of the Matterhorn along with the city lights below it. The moon was right next to the mountain and the stars shone brightly - the photos were mesmerising. We walked through the old town in Matterhorn which has wooden houses still kept in their original form. They all looked so sturdy. Not a lot of people stay there anymore but it was nice to see how the village would have looked like a few hundred years ago. And then we walked up the mountain to our hotel, which was always the toughest part of the day, everytime.


Furi

Walk up the mountains

I decided to take the last day easy and just walked up the village of Furi that day. I had seen the village from the gondola the previous day. So I just started walking from my hotel, up the mountain towards the village. Some parts of the trail were in the forest, and some on the road up. And there were lot of people there, having a relaxed day out. Once near the village, I just walked around a bit, enjoying the bright greenery around me. There were beautiful chalets and holiday homes everywhere. For a while, I just sat with my feet in the river for a bit, enjoying the warm sun.

Suspension bridge

Then I walked up one of the mountains towards the Furi suspension bridge. It is a long and high metal suspension bridge connecting two mountains, and runs over a river flowing deep in the gorge. I never though I would find it scary but it took me a few tries before I could walk across it, stop in between and look around, and cross it without holding the sides. Sometimes it can surprise even you with what scares you, isn’t it? After I got over my fear, I crossed the bridge 3 times to make sure it sticks 😁. I also walked to the Gletschergarten Dossen which is an informative walk to understand what all the glaciers leave behind – barely balancing rocks, glacier holes and so on. It was quite an interesting walk through ancient history.

Zermatt from the top

While going back to Zermatt we followed the markings and came to an area in Furi with 3 restaurants. We walked into one of them, called Aroleid. And what a find it was! It has to be one of the best restaurants I have been to. In the mountains with spectacular open views around. And one of the best foods we have had. We spent 2 hours there, just sitting and enjoying the food and its view. I just didn’t want to leave the place at all. But of course, we had to.

On the walk

After this idyllic end to our trip, it was time to say goodbye. We again took connecting trains and were back in Lausanne by the end of the day, with the ride back home being the most boring part of the trip. The weekend was amazing and I was fully inspired to do more of these weekend hiking trips. Of course I was exhausted, and every muscle in my body hurt. But we had a few days of rest before going for our next hiking weekend. To Grindelwald.

Other Switzerland posts from this stay

Mountains of Grindelwald

Living the swiss life in Lausanne

Summer weekend in Geneva