Day 9: Interlaken Exploration – While in Interlaken, we had planned to visit both Jungfraujoch and Schilthorn mountain tops. The weather was a bit too rainy and cloudy in the mountains, which meant visibility may have been poor.

We opted to explore the beautiful lakes instead.

Interlaken sits between Lakes Thun and Brienz. Both offer ferries that sail from village to village throughout the day. We started our day with a hot coffee and hearty breakfast at our hotel.

We then chose to explore Lake Brienz (but would have been happy sailing on either).

If you have the Swiss Pass, you are automatically given access to first class (on both trains and ferries, if available). This is particularly nice because the boats have a restaurant at the top of their first class area with seating lining the windows so you can enjoy a relaxing Cappuccino and meal while the the gorgeous scenery floats by.

There are many places you can disembark, explore, and even hike (to waterfalls) and then you hop back onto the next available ferry and keep going. It’s a lovely way to spend a morning/afternoon. Here are a few photos from our morning.

The above photo is our boat pulling up to one of the lake side towns. So pretty. The boats sail by regularly throughout the day, but you have to plan ahead so you don’t end up spending too much time in any one village. Plus, the boats are very timely, so make sure you are on time.

Stops are quick and efficient, dropping off and picking up people within minutes, and then sailing off to the next stop.

The villages we visited were quaint and peaceful. If we had a few more days, we most likely would have spent more time on the lake, exploring other villages, and perhaps even hiking in between the towns.

We headed back “home” to Interlaken around 3pm, so we would have time to explore the town a bit before heading to dinner. More on that in the next post.

For more information on our itineraries, feel free to email us at dtgainor@gmail.com or visit Global Getaways to learn more about who we are and how we work.