Grindelwald is one of the most picturesque villages in Switzerland, it lies in a valley surrounded by lush green hills and snowy mountains. If you want that picture perfect picture of Switzerland, Grindelwald is the place to be. Besides this, Grindelwald is also the so-called action capital of Switzerland, meaning you can undertake many thrilling activities. As these activities are not toddler friendly, we went for a hike instead. But I think I can give some opinions about the activities in this blog, so you are optimally prepared for Grindelwald!
Practical information
We visited Grindelwald by gondola and train from Lauterbrunnen. The trains and gondolas to Grindelwald are included in the Jungfrau travel pass, so we got to travel for free. The Jungfrau travel pass also includes the gondola to Grindelwald-First, which is where you can undertake many hikes and activities. If you do not have a Jungfrau travel pass the gondola costs about 34CHF. It is a very steep climb, so you definitely want to consider taking the gondola. Please note that the gondola stations of Grindelwald, the train station and the gondola station to First are all in different areas of Grindelwald. There are buses connecting all these points thought.
Grindelwald
If you travel to Grindelwald from Lauterbrunnen it is easiest and quickest to take the train, however we decided to travel there by gondola. This was quite a journey, but it also provides you with amazing views of the Grindelwald valley. We loved taking this route to Grindelwald, but it definitely took us quite some time before we arrived!
Grindelwald First
We took a bus to the train station of Grindelwald and from there it was only a short walk to the gondola station to First. I originally decided that I wanted to visit First because I wanted to do the hike to Bachalpsee, but we got started so late that the clouds were already rolling in by the time we got to the highest station. I didn’t factor in enough time for the very slow Firstbahn and the stops it would make along the way. If you want to do the hike to the Bachalpsee, make sure to take an early gondola, because the weather usually worsens during the day. We decided to hike down from First to Schreckfeld. This hike mainly takes you through cow fields, which was not spectacular but fun anyway. On this route you can see two of the activities of First: First Flieger and First Gilder will fly over your head while flying down.
At the Schreckfeld stop you can find the infamous go-carts, where you can go go-karting down the mountain. This actually seemed like a lot of fun, but if you visit mid-day the queue can actually take three hours, which seemed ridiculous. I would have loved to do this, but kids have to be a minimum of 135cms to join, so we skipped. If you want to do this activity I would recommend to take the first cable car up, the weather is the best in the mornings anyway. In this gondola stop you can find the beautiful viewpoint where I took the picture with the yellow dress.
Instead we took the gondola down to Bort, where we found a great alpine restaurant. We had a lovely lunch with cheese fondue and a bit of sunshine, while Hugo played in the Alpenspielplatz. From Bort we hiked down to Grindelwald, which was such a pleasure. It was a pretty steep hike down, but you were passing cows playing in the wildflower fields, all with a stunning mountain backdrop, just heavenly! In Bort you can also hire a “Trottibike”, a little scooter, and take this to get down. We actually witnessed a few incidents with these scooters, as lots of people who don’t know how to use them hire them anyway. It is pretty steep and you need to be careful with the brakes. It seemed less safe than expected. It took us about one hour to get down from Bort.
