Mürren’s giddy perch on a cliff edge at the heart of the Bernese Oberland is the royal box in the theatre of Alpine scenery. The view – of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau – is sublime, the village is car-free and delightful, and any time of the year is good.
The beauty of the Lauterbrunnen Valley and Mürren’s spectacular position won fame long before the first skiers took to the hills. Travellers of the Romantic period came to sketch the waterfalls and drop their jaws at the majesty of the summits. Victorian post cards caricatured the famous mountain trio as a monk (Monch) protecting a virginal maiden (Jungfrau) from a leering ogre (Eiger), and made a visual joke of the mountains scarred by railways and overrun by a mass invasion of tourists thrilled by the wild beauty of Alpine nature … and demanding their urban comforts.
Of course that has happened, to a degree; but compared with other places, only to a very modest degree. The miracle is that Mürren has kept its place on the list of must-see Alpine beauty spots – a status that was reinforced by the use of the Schilthorn as the film set for ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ in 1967 - without becoming a tourist trap or sacrificing its village character.
For skiers, Mürren’s altitude is a great blessing. At 1650m, it is one of the highest Swiss resorts, and snow conditions are reliable for a long ski season that lasts from early December to late April.
In summer, visitors come from all over the world to visit the Schilthorn's revolving restaurant and the famous train ride from Grindelwald to the Jungfraujoch, via a tunnel through the rock of the Eiger. These highlights apart, Mürren is a wonderful base for summer walking, mountain biking and river rafting, not to mention the giddy thrills of the new Via Ferrata (klettersteig) and tightrope bridge along the cliff face to Gimmelwald. Further afield, there are lots of excursions to enjoy: wood carving in Brienz; boat trips and water sports on Lakes Thun and Brienz; and Meiringen, home of meringue and the Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes confronted Moriarty.
(Extracted from an article, Miraculaous Mürren, by Adam Ruck).
For more information about Mürren and its surroundings and for details of activities, you might like to visit the following web sites:
(all these open in a new web page)
Getting to Mürren
The Bernese Oberland is the closest Alpine region to the Channel and an easy day’s drive from the south of England. There are car parks at Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg, and Mürren’s two stations (train and cable-car) are about equidistant from Chalet Candamo.
Berne is the closest airport but flights to Zurich and Basel are less expensive and more frequent, and Geneva is almost as easy. For train timetables see www.sbb.ch