10 Best Things to Do in Interlaken

Harder Kulm is the easy win of the ten - a 10-minute funicular ride from Interlaken Ost drops you at 1,322 metres with a straight-on view of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau lined up like a postcard. The Two Lakes Bridge lookout juts out over the valley so you get Thun on your left, Brienz on your right, and the town squeezed between them. Return tickets run about CHF 38 in 2026, or roughly CHF 19 with a Half Fare Card. There's a Swiss-style restaurant at the top (the Harder Kulm Panorama Restaurant) that opens seasonally from late April to late November. If you have the legs, a marked hiking trail runs down to Unterseen in about two hours through the forest.

Pro Tip: Come 45 minutes before sunset. The Alps light up pink for about 15 minutes (the Alpenglow), and the last funicular back down runs at 21:40 in July, giving you time to eat first.

The Schilthorn is the peak James Bond blew up in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), and Piz Gloria - the revolving restaurant at the summit - was actually built for the film. The cable car system has been fully renewed for 2026 with the new Schilthornbahn 20XX gondolas, cutting the trip from Stechelberg to the summit to under 30 minutes. From the top at 2,970 metres, on clear days you can see over 200 peaks including Mont Blanc and the Black Forest in Germany. A return ticket from Interlaken via Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg is around CHF 108 with a Half Fare Card in 2026. The Skyline View platform and Thrill Walk built into the cliff face at Birg (halfway up) are worth stopping for on the way down.

Pro Tip: Skip the Bond Breakfast buffet unless you're a superfan - it's overpriced. Instead, take the earliest cable car up for the clearest views, then break at Mürren car-free village on the way back for lunch.

Lake Thun (Thunersee) stretches 17.5 km west from Interlaken to the town of Thun and is the darker, bluer of the two lakes. BLS runs boats year-round from the Interlaken West pier, including the historic 1906 paddle steamer Blüemlisalp on select summer days. A full round-trip to Thun and back takes about four hours and costs around CHF 76 with a Half Fare Card in 2026 - Swiss Travel Pass holders ride free. Along the way you pass Oberhofen Castle (worth a stop for the moated tower jutting into the water) and Spiez Castle on its vineyard-covered peninsula. Bring a picnic and grab a seat on the sun deck; the on-board restaurant is fine but the views deserve your full attention.

Pro Tip: Take the boat one way to Spiez (90 minutes), tour the castle and its 10th-century Romanesque church, then hop the BLS train back to Interlaken in 20 minutes. You get the scenic ride without spending a full day at sea.

Lake Brienz (Brienzersee) is the smaller, more turquoise of the two lakes - the colour comes from glacial silt flowing in from the Aare River. The star stop is Giessbach Falls, a 14-tier cascade dropping about 500 metres down the north shore. From the boat pier, the historic Giessbach funicular (running since 1879, the oldest in Europe) climbs to the Grandhotel Giessbach where a network of trails takes you right behind the falls. Boat return to the Giessbach stop from Interlaken Ost is about CHF 44 with a Half Fare Card in 2026; the funicular adds around CHF 7. If you continue on to Brienz village at the far end, you can catch the Brienz Rothorn steam railway (May to October) up to 2,244 metres for a proper Old-World experience.

Pro Tip: Do the falls in the morning when the light hits them east-to-west. Walk the loop trail behind the middle cascade - you'll get soaked, but the view back through the spray is the best photo on the lake.

Tandem paragliding is what Interlaken is known for outside the mountain crowd, and the reason is geography - the valley floor is flat and wide, with two lakes as a horizon and Alps on three sides. Most tandem flights launch from Beatenberg at around 1,600 metres and land on the Höhematte meadow in the middle of town. A standard flight runs 10-15 minutes in the air (25 minutes for the higher launches) and costs about CHF 210-260 in 2026 depending on the operator and altitude. Skywings, Paragliding Interlaken, and Twin Paragliding all have solid safety records. You need zero experience - your pilot handles everything, you just run five steps off the hill and enjoy the ride.

Pro Tip: Book the first flight of the day (usually 08:00 or 09:00). Air conditions are most stable in the morning, and if weather cancels a flight, most operators will rebook you in the afternoon at no charge - which you can't do if you were already the afternoon slot.

The St. Beatus Caves are a limestone cave system carved into the cliffs above Lake Thun, named after a 6th-century Irish monk who legend says drove a dragon out of them to live there himself. About one kilometre of the cave is developed with lit walkways, waterfalls, and stalactite chambers - the guided path takes around 75 minutes and stays around 8°C year-round, so bring a layer. Entry in 2026 is roughly CHF 22 for adults; combined lake-boat-plus-cave tickets are available from the BLS pier. Outside the caves, a small museum covers the geology and the monk's story, and a footbridge leads out to a viewpoint over the lake. The season runs mid-March through early November.

Pro Tip: Take the boat there and the bus back (or vice versa). The arrival by water is genuinely dramatic - you approach a cliff face and only see the cave entrance when you're 100 metres out.

The Höhematte is a 14-hectare protected meadow in the middle of town that has been preserved unbuilt since 1864 - the story goes that 37 local citizens bought it outright to keep hotels from filling in the Jungfrau view. Today it's where paragliders land, where you'll see cows grazing 200 metres from a five-star hotel, and where the Alphorn festival happens each August. The Höheweg promenade runs along its north edge past the historic Victoria Jungfrau (built 1865) and the horse-carriage stand. Ten minutes on foot gets you to the old wooden covered bridge over the Aare in Unterseen, whose old town dates to 1279 and has some of the best-preserved timbered houses in the Bernese Oberland. It's free, always open, and the best sunset spot in the valley on a clear evening.

Pro Tip: Cross the Aare into Unterseen for dinner rather than eating on Höheweg. Restaurants like Bebbis Restaurant or Restaurant Bären are half the price of the tourist spots on the main strip and locals actually eat there.

Trümmelbach Falls is a set of ten glacier-fed waterfalls hidden inside the mountain wall of the Lauterbrunnen valley - the water is meltwater from the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau, and it moves through the falls at roughly 20,000 litres per second in peak summer. What makes it different from a regular waterfall is that you take a funicular built inside the rock in 1913 up to the middle level, then walk through galleries and tunnels cut through the mountain to see the cascades from the inside. It's loud, misty, and the temperature drops sharply - bring a jacket even in July. Entry in 2026 is around CHF 14 for adults. The falls are open April through mid-November; they close in winter because the water freezes.

Pro Tip: Pair it with Lauterbrunnen village and the Staubbach Falls (297 m, one of the highest free-falling waterfalls in Europe) - all three are within a 15-minute walk once you're in the valley, and you can knock them all out in half a day.

Grindelwald sits at 1,034 metres in the shadow of the Eiger's north face, and it's the launchpad for First - a summit ridge at 2,168 metres reached by a 25-minute gondola from the village centre. Up top you have the First Cliff Walk (a metal walkway bolted onto the cliff face, free with your lift ticket), the First Flyer zipline (800 metres at up to 84 km/h, about CHF 32 extra), and the trailhead for the classic hike to Bachalpsee lake (an easy 1-hour walk each way, arguably the most photographed lake in the Alps). Return gondola from Grindelwald in 2026 is about CHF 38 with a Half Fare Card. In winter, First becomes a ski area linked with Wengen and Männlichen via the Jungfrau Ski Region pass.

Pro Tip: If the sky is clear, hike from First to Bachalpsee (55 minutes flat) and continue to Faulhorn (another 90 minutes uphill) for a summit-restaurant lunch, then descend to Bussalp and catch the bus back to Grindelwald. It's the best day-hike within a short train ride of Interlaken.