Switzerland 2022

A short Road Trip to Switzerland

  After a stressful working period, it was time for a little road trip with my friends. So what could have been better than a spontaneous trip to Switzerland with one of the highlights to see the Matterhorn? Nothing! During our trip, we had the perfect mixture of visiting the beautiful Swiss cities of Bern and Thun and with the beautiful nature of the Alps.  

  We started our tour in Freiburg, getting the rented car for the road trip and then driving to Bern in around two hours. Since we still had a long journey to go to our AirBnB in the area of Täsch, we didn't had the time to make a complete sightseeing tour around the city. But we had the most spectacular view of the historic UNESCO Worl Heritage Site old town by enjoying our picnic break on the other side of the Aare river. At least, we made a few steps to this beautiful old town, seeing the Zytglogge, a landmark medieval tower and former guard tower, prison and clock tower, built in the early 13th century. We walked until we reached the Gothic style Bern Minster and the square, from where we also had a great view. Even if we just stayed for a short time, it was a great start for our road trip with putting the city of Bern on the list of cities, we want to visit again in the future.

  From Bern, we continued in the direction of Kandersteg, where we could take a shortcut by taking the train through the Lötschberg Tunnel, an almost 15 km long railway tunnel to Goppenstein. Even if it wasn't planned and we just took the shortcut accidentally because of the GPS, it saved us almost two hours, so that we could arrive at our AirBnB on time. That also gave us the opportunity to explore the surrounding of our AirBnB directly in the first night. We found a lake, which looked beautiful in the internet, so we decided to spend our first evening there. To be honest, it was not the most beautiful place, but at least, I could spend the evening with my friends in an area with surrounding mountains, which was a perfect end for the first day.

   The next morning, we woke up early to take the train from Täsch to Zermatt, because it wasn't possible and allowed to go there by car. Zermatt - probably most known for its tourism in the winter season, is a little cute municipality in the district of Visp at the upper end of the Matter Valley. But Zermatt is more than just a ski resort. It's a fantastic place to start many hiking trips and also the village itself with the wooden houses was really beautiful. It was also possible to see the Matterhorn from Zermatt already, although we didn't had a clear sky. The clouds made it difficult to see the peak of the Toblerone Mountain, but it was still amazing. 

  Since it was a national holiday - not only in Germany, also in Switzerland - many tourists were visiting Zermatt. We could also see a group of drummers in military uniform, going through the village, following the tradition of the Corpus Christi procession, playing music and sometimes interrupting themselves with cannon salutes. It was quite interesting to see this kind of tradition, before continuing to the gondola, where we had to pay 109 CHF for the round-trip ticket to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, the highest mountain station of the Alps at 3.883 metres, and the observation platform.

  We had to take three gondolas to reach the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise station with its Mirador Observation Deck. It was breathtaking to see the surrounding summits in this Alps panoramic view. Unbelievable 38 four-thousanders and 14 glaciers can be seen from the platform. A real paradise! But since it was also really cold on the viewing platform, we decided to visit the highest Glacier Palace in the world. A place, where we felt like in a world of eternal ice with its beautiful designed ice sculptures and centuries-old ice formations. It was like in a dream - a fairy tale!

  After enjoying the amazing view, we took the gondola back to the station called "Trockener Steg" at 2.939 metres. The most important thing was, that it wasn't that cold, so we stayed a couple of time at this height, exploring the area with a beautiful glacier lake and the probably best view of the Matterhorn at the day with seeing its peak from a very great perspective. It was an unbelievable day, I won't forget in my life!  

  After the trip to Zermatt and the view of the Matterhorn, we thought, we already had our highlight of the road trip. When we came back to our AirBnB, we discussed to go back to Zermatt for a hike the next day, but luckily, we decided for a less popular hiking trail in Saas-Fee, the main village in the Saas Valley with the nickname "Pearl of the Alps"- and the nickname wasn't an understatement. When we arrived there at the parking area, we were already surprised and impressed by the surrounding mountains and the well-preserved Swiss wood architecture.    

  We started our hike in the direction of the Hannig mountain restaurant and gondola station at a height of 2.350 metres. When we left the village, we were directly among the forest, in the calm nature of the Alps. Sometimes, when the forest wasn't so dense, we could see a beautiful mountain panorama. We kept walking uphill and tried to take a shortcut. It would have been a steeper climb, but according to the directions, we would still have saved a lot of time. Later, however, a waymarker indicated that this way was much further, so we turned around and continued to follow the normal path. 

  After an exhausting hike, we decided to take a picnic break to regenerate our energy and enjoy the view and the calmness. The best part of the hike was, that there weren't many people around - not like a day before in Zermatt, where all places were overcrowded by tourists. That made this hike in Saas-Fee even more attractive and to the real highlight of the road trip in Switzerland.  

  Unfortunately, I also had a little mishap, when my smartphone fell out of my trousers pocket. Luckily, the phone didn't fall that far and I was able to save it with my bouldering skills. After that adventure, we continued the hiking trip with even more spectacular views of the Saas Valley, climbing a short passage on a rope and by crossing a bridge via a kind of river waterfall. It was a perfect hiking eperience, which we all shared together.

  After the brilliant hiking day and having dinner in our AirBnB, we decided to go to the neighbor village for watching the sunset. It was different than expected, but at least, the change of the sky colors were worth it. Later on, I also made a little walk, seeing the lights of a municipality in the valley at night.

  Since I saw pictures of Oeschinen Lake the first time, I always wanted to visit it. So the road trip was the perfect occasion. We left the AirBnB on Saturday morning, driving back in the direction, from where we came. We had to take the train through the Lötschberg Tunnel again to arrive in Kandersteg, the starting point of the tour to the lake. A gondola lift from Kandersteg leads to Oeschinen mountain station, a 25 minutes hike away by foot from the lake. We were surprised and impressed by the beautiful turquoise blue lake, framed by the three-thousanders Blüemlisalp, Oeschinenhorn, Fründenhorn and Doldenhorn.

  We hiked to an observation point at an alpine hut, having a picnic and taking pictures of the surrounding landscape with the lake. After strengthened by food, we hiked down and closer to the lake, where we found a nice place in the shadow to enjoy the time around the lake even longer. After a while, I decided to go swimming and I didn't regret it. Even if it was a bit cold at the beginning, it felt like an amazing refreshing on that hot summer day. Some time later, we decided to hike back to Kandersteg, seeing two waterfalls. 

  From Kandersteg, we still had to drive around an hour to a small village, where we had our next AirBnB, a farm with hay beds, which was also an interesting experience. But before we went to sleep, we went to Thun to have dinner. We got some food for takeaway and then went to the Lake Thun to enjoy the last evening of our trip by playing Monopoly cards.

  After our overnight stay on the farm, sleeping in the hay beds, we started our last day by driving to Thun again to explore the city. The city - also called the "Gateway to the Bernese Oberland" - was wonderful with its beautiful old town and the variation of activities, which were possible to do. It was even possible to go surfing at the river wave of the Aare river. We just walked through the city, until we reached the Lake Thun, where we had a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains - the natural World Heritage Site of the Alps. Since we didn't have enough time, we skipped the tour around the lake to have enough time to have lunch at the wall of the Thun Castle. After a little break, we made a tour around the castle, enjoying the view of Thun again, before going back to the car for heading of to Freiburg.