If you’ve ever gawked at an amazing photo of Switzerland in the Spring, there’s a good chance you were looking at a photo of Mürren. The small Swiss village of Murren is located on the Schilthorn mountain in the Bernese Oberland, overlooking Lauterbrunnen Valley.
In late spring and early summer, the rolling hills are covered with over 150 types of alpine flowers exploding with colour, making this one of the most heavenly scenes on earth. The panoramic hike around Mürren and then down to Stechelberg via Gimmelwald is one of our favourite hikes in Switzerland, and also offers mind blowing views of the north face of the Eigerhorn.
A cable car connects Stechelberg at the base of the Schilthorn to the towns of Gimmelwald and Mürren. If you don’t want to drive or take a bus to Stechelberg, you can also reach Mürren from Lauterbrunnen via Grütschalp, which involves both a cable car and train. Mürren is a car-free village, so you can’t drive there directly.
Whilst you can hike up to Mürren and then down again, it’s unlikely that you’ll have enough time or energy to fully appreciate the scenery and take plenty of photographs if you hike both up and down the mountain.
We drove to Stechelberg from Interlaken, which took us about 40 minutes despite Google Maps suggesting it takes 25 minutes. Maybe it’s because the scenery is so amazing that we were constantly slowing down to appreciate the valley.
At Stechelberg we were able to park our car at the cable car parking lot. It cost 7 CHF to park anywhere between 8-24 hours. We caught the cable car up to Mürren, which only cost 11 CHF per adult. It’s a beautiful experience and despite feeling a little guilty for not hiking up the mountain, we definitely didn’t regret it.
After reaching the Mürren Gondola lift station, we took our time walking down the main street until we reached the Mürren train station. It was here that we joined the Blumental Panorama Trail. The trail is mostly marked by pink signs with “Blumental” written on them. At several points the trail lacks adequate signage, but the aim is to reach Allmendhubal and then make your way back down to Mürren. Even if you don’t want to walk all the way up to Allmendhubal, it’s definitely worth doing at least part of the trail to see the panoramic views over Mürren.
The descent from Mürren to Gimmelwald should take 30 minutes according to the signage, and the trail is well marked. One thing we’ve learned in Switzerland is that you can essentially double the time stated for any hike. The person who came up with these times seems to be some power-walker who thoroughly disapproves of slowing down at any time to appreciate nature. So, it took us an hour to hike from Mürren to Gimmelwald.
Once we reached Gimmelwald we stopped at the Pension Gimmelwald Biergarten and enjoyed a dark Swiss beer called Schwarz Mönch whilst taking in the views. They had a 20 CHF card minimum, so bring cash if you’re planning on visiting. From Gimmelwald it then took us another 1.5 hours to reach our car at Stechelberg.
About half of the trail from Gimmelwald to Stechelberg involves descending through the forest overlooking the cliffside waterfalls, which is very beautiful. After the decent the last part of the trail winds through the end of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, set in meadows of wildflowers against the rising cliff-face.
Overall you could expect the day’s hiking to take about 6-8 hours starting and ending in Stechelberg. We purchased lunch at the Coop in Mürren, as restaurant prices were sky-high. Like most of the Swiss countryside free water refill stations are everywhere, so you won’t need to worry about staying hydrated.
