On our last day in the Jungfrau region in Switzerland we had a very good visit to Wengen & Männlichen. We discovered a kid friendly hike and one of the most beautiful playgrounds! This is a lesser known area of the Jungfrau region, but definitely worth a visit if you love nature and alpine villages.
Practical information
If you are looking for a relaxed way to visit Männlichen, I would recommend taking the gondola up from Wengen. This gondola is super steep and will provide you with amazing views over Wengen and the surrounding mountains. The gondola is included in the Jungfrau travel pass, but you can also buy a separate ticket. In summertime a return ticket for the gondola costs 52 CHF. You can add a ticket to your ride, which will give you access to the open air rooftop of the gondola for just 5 CHF extra. If you are not afraid of heights, this is a must!
Männlichen
From Männlichen station you can do several hikes, however they were not all open when we visited at the beginning of May. I would have loved to do the Panorama route, but this hike was partly covered in snow and therefore closed. We did the Liselotte hike instead, which is a kid friendly hike, which follows the track of the “cow” Liselotte and includes some games for kids. It was a pretty steep hike down to the middle station of Holenstein. Most of the hikes we did in the Jungfrau region looked at the Lauterbrunnen valley and this hike faced the other direction, to Grindelwald, which was a nice change of scenery. On your way you will pass a beautiful alpine lake, original wildflowers and a super picturesque mountain hut. The Holenstein gondola was also included in our Jungfrau travel pass, so we got to use it for free.
Männlichen itself has a famous viewpoint “the royal walk” which looked super crowded, so we didn’t hike to this viewpoint. Instead we spent a lot of time in the playground, which was super fun and had gorgeous views too. I found the alpine restaurant in Männlichen a bit too expensive for what they offered and didn’t love the view, so we didn’t eat there. Can you spot Hugo and I in the pictures below?
Wengen
Wengen was the number one spot that we didn’t get to visit yet in our Jungfrau week, so we were glad to be able to visit on the last day. Definitely a cute alpine village, a little bit more upper class than Lauterbrunnen. Luckily we found a relatively affordable restaurant: Hotel restaurant Bernerhof where we had delicious alpine pasta. Wengen is a worth a visit if only to see the views of Lauterbrunnen from the train!
