Handpicked experience
Instant Confirmation
Seventy-two waterfalls come off the walls of one valley, and the famous one can thin to a drifting thread in a dry spell before turning into a torrent after rain.
A valley whose shape explains its own waterfalls
A famous fall that is different water in every season
Glacier melt travelling through solid rock
Three villages with three separate weather systems
Commentary from someone who knows which peak is which
A twelve-hour coach day through the Bernese Oberland from Zurich, Lucerne or Interlaken, with time in Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, a stop in Interlaken, commentary on board and repeated views of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
Lauterbrunnen is a trough with walls close to vertical on both sides, and water comes off the top of them in seventy-two separate places.
The name says it: lauter Brunnen means nothing but springs. The valley was cut by a glacier that scoured it into a U and left the side valleys hanging high above the floor, so their streams have nowhere to go but over the edge. That is what you are looking at — not decoration, but the drainage of a landscape whose plumbing was rearranged by ice.
The famous fall beside the village drops nearly three hundred metres in a single leap, and in a dry spell most of it never reaches the ground.
Staubbach means dust stream. Water falling that far breaks up in the air and arrives as drifting spray, and if the flow above is low the whole thing thins into a wavering white thread that the wind moves sideways. After rain or in the melt season it is a torrent.
This is worth knowing before you arrive, because a photograph taken in June and a visit in late September are two different waterfalls. Nobody controls which one you get.
The Trümmelbach is the exception, and it is the one most people miss.
It carries the meltwater of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau — a great deal of ice, draining through a single channel — and instead of falling down the cliff face it drilled its way into the rock. The result is a series of chambers, corkscrews and shafts inside the mountain, made accessible in 1913 by a tunnel lift and galleries cut for the purpose.
It is loud, cold and wet in there. It also moves an enormous volume of water in high summer, and it is the only glacier waterfall in Europe that can be visited underground.
Tolkien walked this valley in 1911, as a young man on a hiking holiday, and the landscape that came out of it later is recognisable. Anyone who has read the books will spot it without being told.
The valley does not lean on this and neither will your guide. It is simply true, and it is a good measure of how the place lands on people who see it for the first time.
Most of this day is spent on the coach. The stops are generous enough for photographs, a walk and a coffee, and not for a mountain excursion.
Cable cars and mountain railways are not part of this ticket. If you want to go up, that is a separate arrangement and a different sort of day.
Bring a rain layer whatever the forecast — three valleys, and the weather in each is its own.
Same route either way — the difference is who else is in the vehicle. Open one to see its dates and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Barely a kilometre across at the floor, with walls rising several hundred metres on both sides almost vertically.
Yes, in villages on the floor and on terraces above, some reachable only by cable car rather than by road.
Nearly three hundred metres in a single leap, which is why the water breaks up in the air on the way down.
In a dry spell most of it never reaches the ground, drifting away as spray. After rain or in the melt season it is a torrent.
A glacier waterfall that drilled into the rock rather than falling down the cliff, carrying meltwater from the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
Yes, through a tunnel lift and galleries cut in 1913. It is the only glacier waterfall in Europe that can be visited underground.
He did, in 1911, and readers tend to recognise the landscape without being prompted.
No. Mountain railways and cable cars are separate arrangements and not part of this ticket.