Grandhotel Giessbach

 

Oeschinensee

 

Switzerland 2025 - Brienz part 2

Since we spent five nights at Giessbach, we were able to make several day trips throughout the surrounding area. We drove to the small city of Thun and visited Thun Castle as well as Castle Oberhofen which was our favorite of the two.  Oberhofen has five different levels to explore with some fun things to discover along the way. Hint: if someone is tapping on one the kitchen doors, open it! We had a lovely bit of cake at the restaurant terrace too. We saw some people surfing the wake created by the water gates under the old covered bridge in Thun as well.

One day we drove to Kandersteg to take the cable car up and hike to the lake Oeschinensee. As we were driving into Kandersteg, we found ourselves on the same street as a herd of local cows being brought down to their home barns from the summer pastures in the mountains.  They all wore lovely headdress of little trees with flowers and their cowbells would clang-clang as they walked by. It was a real treat to see this bovine parade. Once we took the cable car up, we hiked up to a mountain hut restaurant where we get a nice view of the lake.  We didn’t do the hike around the lake as I hurt one of my knees before we left on the trip. It’s a beautiful alpine lake and worth seeing. They do suggest making a reservation for the cable car as Instagram has made this a very popular spot and they now limit the number of people who go up via the cable car. You can hike up from the village of Kandersteg but to hike up there and then around the lake would take a lot of stamina I think as the hike around the lake itself is supposed to take more than two hours. 

Did you know that you can make your very own Swiss Army knife? When I found this out, Mike was keen to do it so I made an appointment with the Victorinox store in Brunnen. So we drove to Brunnen and a lovely young lady named Katrina helped Mike build his very own knife. It took about twenty minutes and he had some options of the type of knife and the pieces he could choose, the cover he wanted, the type of engraving, what you want it to say, etc. He was quite pleased with the result and very happy with the experience, so that was definitely a worthwhile activity. After leaving Brunnen we drove to Lucerne to look around a bit and then it was back to our hotel to lounge in our wonderful terrace and watch the sunset over the lake. 

We also visited the Aareschlucht gorge which we liked. We like gorges and seeing what the power of water can create from flowing over the stone.  We started at the west end and it was a flat, easy boardwalk that took about 40 minutes to walk, stopping for photo and to look at various features. There was even an old military bunker on the opposite side of the river that was built into the stone of the gorge but never used. We turned around at the end and walked back through the gorge rather than waiting for the bus and it only took us about ten minutes to walk back lol. 

We rode the Brienzer Rothornbahn train to the top of the mountain overlooking Lake Brienz and Lake Thun.  This was a very slow one-hour ride each way so it does take all morning to do this with time enough to look around at the top. It was not our favorite activity unfortunately. 

We spent some time looking around Interlaken as well and enjoyed watching the paragliders taking off from Harder Kulm landing in the park.

Switzerland 2025 - Lake Brienz (Brienzersee) part 1

We are finally here in Switzerland! We decided to land in Zurich but not stay the night there as we have been to Zurich once before. Instead we picked up our rental car and drove past Lucerne to the Stansserhorn train and cable car. We took the first stage up the mountain by train, then everyone gets off and switches to a cable car for the remainder of the journey. We had a lovely sunny day with just a bit of haze on the mountains. There are a few different viewpoints there plus a restaurant and nice terrace. We saw several mountains and Lake Lucerne as well. A little Swiss boy tried to have a conversation with me but my German is unfortunately not good enough to actually converse. He was very sweet though and reminded me of the son of one of my daughter’s friends  

Once we left Stansserhorn, we traveled to our hotel in Giessbach on beautiful Lake Brienz. We stayed at the Grandhotel Giessbach in the Giessbach suite which was a bit of a splurge for us but was soooo worth it. We found this hotel because Mike is a fan of the TV miniseries Band of Brothers and part of the series was filmed at the Giessbach and in our suite.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about this hotel! The view from our terrace was so beautiful every day, no matter the time of day. We looked out over the lake and if we looked to our left, we saw the pretty Giessbach falls. The staff were wonderful, the breakfast was delicious and so many choices, everything was of the highest standard. Our suite had a large terrace with two sets of tables and chairs as well as two loungers. 

There are day visitors to the hotel because it is part of a nature park and you can actually hike to the top of the falls. We went as high as the second bridge which is about two-thirds of the way up. The day trippers can drive to the hotel or they can take the lake ferry to the hotel dock and ride the funicular up to the hotel, but in the late afternoon they leave with the last ferry and you have only guests remaining. 

We spent a total of five nights here, venturing out to enjoy the sights in the area. I loved this place and I was so sorry to leave it. We told each other that it might have been better to end our trip at this spot as we don’t think any other place will compare.