Lauterbrunnen — a Fairytale Swiss Village

From Lake Thun, we continued our European roadtrip to the fairytale village of Lauterbrunnen, hidden in a deep valley in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by steep rock faces dotted with waterfalls and wrapped in trees where the mountains are less steep. There are 72 waterfalls that run into the valley, some several hundred feet high. This beautiful place inspired Tolkien's mystical Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. We were here in April before everything turned green after the winter, so we can only imagine how beautiful and lush it must be in the summer.

With only one day here, we visited a place called Trümmelbach Falls, which is a group of beautiful glacier waterfalls inside a mountain and requires a small fee to visit. We’ve never seen any falls like this, running through the inside of a mountain. The waterfalls are super tall and forceful, carving amazing tunnels through the rock. There is a tunnel-lift that will give you a ride to the top of the mountain, and stairs and tunnels that descend down through the mountain, with platforms and lights illuminating the waterfalls in all the right places. There were a few areas where you had to get wet from the incredible spray to get a look at the falls, and yell to be heard over the sound of rushing water. Though it didn't feel very wild, it was pretty impressive how the waterfalls were made accessible with stairs and rails for visitors.

The Trümmelbach drains glaciers from several massive peaks in the Alps including Eiger (3970 m), Mönch (4099 m) and Jungfrau (4158 m). Up to 20,000 litres of water pass through the falls every second. No wonder it’s so beautifully carved!

If we had more time, we would have loved to do some hiking in the area. From the valley, we took a cable car up to the summit of Schilthorn to get a closer look at the Alps. Those photos in the next post.

Riding a tunnel lift through the inside of a rocky mountain to get to the top of Trümmelbach Falls.