Grindelwald: A Swiss Fairytale Village

We have all heard of the Swiss Alps, the wondrous, incredible, massive mountains running through the southern half of Switzerland, from East to West. The Swiss Alps mountain range brings beauty to the world that is hard to describe with words or even photos.

This past summer, I had the amazing privilege of spending three weeks living and working in Switzerland. During this time, I took on several amazing hikes, and I would like to highlight my favorite place I visited while doing so: Grindelwald (Pronounced: Grin-del-valt).

When I first saw the name of the town, my only thought was the powerful, evil, ancient wizard from Harry Potter. I instantly liked the town for the association with one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. Upon further googling, Grindelwald turned out to be a quaint mountain village, accessible by train or car, surrounded by towering, lush, green mountains. I booked my train tickets and got my hiking gear ready to go for what would turn out to be the most jaw-dropping nature experience I have ever had.

Train station of Grindelwald

After several hours of train rides, I arrived in the little town, already awestruck by my surroundings. I had a while until I could check into my hostel, so I took my pack and went for an eight-mile hike/walk. This adventure was amazing, but nothing compared to the hike I took on the following morning.

After walking around all afternoon and getting a feel for the magical feeling in the air of this village, I checked into my hostel. I had dinner while watching the golden glow of the sunset illuminate the north face of the Eiger (A famous view of Grindelwald).

The view from the back deck of my hostel - The North Face of Eiger

I got a good night's sleep after a cumulative 10 miles of hiking on day one (I went on another hike with some folks I met at the hostel before dinner!) One of my roommates for the night decided to join me on the hike, and we got started at about 7:30am. We crushed 14.5 miles (23.34km) and 5,394 feet (1644.1m) of vertical gain across a seven-hour and forty-two-minute day of hiking. Along the way was one of the most amazing views of a well-known alpine lake, called Bachalpsee. As you can see in the photo of me below, it hardly looks real.

Lake Bachalpsee

We took a dip in the cold blue waters of the lake and ate lunch amongst the fairyland-esque views here before taking on the rest of the journey to the summit of Faulhorn. From the top of Faulhorn, you could see down to Interlaken, as well as the town of Grindelwald. There were beautiful lakes and countless other peaks to take in. We spent a good amount of time sitting in silence while we tried to process everything we were seeing. I will let the following photos do the talking for me: (Keep scrolling after for more!)

The hike led us directly back to the train station in town, and from here we pretty much got on trains and went our separate ways. (I've got to say, I am sorry to all of the people who were around me on the train. I hope to never be so sweaty (stinky) in public again.)

My weekend in Grindelwald was two days that I will never forget. The views were unlike anything I have ever seen, even after having lived in Breckenridge, Colorado, for the past three years. It was an expensive trip, even with no paid activities. Trains, the hostel, and food are all quite expensive throughout Switzerland, but especially there. That said, I would do it again in a heartbeat.