2027 Prague, Bavaria and Salzburg. See where we're going
Personal Euro Tours
Menu
Habkern, Switzerland

Habkern

A village above Interlaken where alphorns are still made by hand, from spruce cut on the slope above the workshop

What it actually is

  • A farming village in the Bernese Oberland, up a dead-end road above Interlaken. Nothing passes through Habkern on the way to anywhere, which is most of why it still looks the way it does.
  • Dark timber chalets, a painted Bernese farmhouse or two, one road, and pasture running up to the peaks behind. There is no lift, no lake promenade and no museum of the sort a coach stops at.
  • It is a stop, not a day — and the reason to make it is a workshop at the side of the road where alphorns are built from the tree up.
  • We have been twice, three years apart: June 2023 and June 2026. Almost nothing about the village had changed in between, which is the point of it.
The road through the village, peaks beyond
The road through the village, peaks beyond

The alphorn maker

Bernatone, on the village road, is a working shop rather than a visitor attraction that happens to make instruments.

  • Heinz Tschiemer makes the horns. His father Hans saws the logs in his own sawmill, which is the part that makes the rest of it unusual.
  • A Bernatone alphorn is made exclusively from local spruce from the mountain forests of Habkern. The tree, the sawmill, the workshop and the finished instrument are inside about two kilometers of each other.
  • Inside, the sections are turned, bound with cane, and the bell carved and painted. Our photographs are the bench and the tools, horn sections hung along the wall, finished instruments leaning in a row, a carved bell, and horns wrapped and ready to ship.
  • The one worth looking at twice is two alphorns actually being played in the workshop, which is what the room is for and what a display case cannot do.

This is the second instrument maker in this archive, after the brass workshop at Freischling in Austria. That is not a coincidence, and /about says why.

Horns curving up the workshop wall
Horns curving up the workshop wall

What it costs, and what it does not

  • The museum is free, and mostly open. You can walk in, smell the spruce, and look at the horns without arranging anything or paying anybody.
  • The shop takes visitors without an appointment. No booking, no ticket.
  • A guided tour of the actual workshop is by request only, and it is chargeable. Factory visiting hours run 08:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00. This is the part people turn up hoping for and do not get: if you want to be walked through how a horn is made, it has to be arranged in advance, not asked for at the door.
  • The village itself is free and always open, which is the other half of the stop. The road, the chalets and the view back down the valley cost nothing.
  • Checked against bernatone.ch and interlaken.swiss on 16 September 2026. A one-man workshop’s hours are exactly the kind that change, so confirm before you drive up.
The Bernatone Alphornbau sign above the shop
The Bernatone Alphornbau sign above the shop

Getting there, and how long

  • It is a short run up from Interlaken, on a road that ends at the village. There is a bus stop in Habkern, so it is reachable without a car, but the schedule is a rural one and it decides your day rather than the other way around.
  • Ninety minutes to half a day. The shop and the museum are half an hour; a booked workshop tour is a couple of hours; the village adds a slow walk and a coffee.
  • It sits above Interlaken, which means it pairs naturally with a Bernese Oberland day rather than standing alone — Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald and Mürren are all within reach of the same base.
The village at sunset from the hill
The village at sunset from the hill

When to bother

  • Any dry day between late spring and autumn. This is a village and a workshop, not a viewpoint, so it does not need the weather the mountain days need — but the road up and the walk around it are better without rain.
  • Go if somebody in the party likes making things. The appeal here is watching a material become an object, and it lands hardest with people who would rather see a workshop than a castle.
  • Skip it if your week is already tight. Habkern is a genuine pleasure and it is not a headline. On a six-day Swiss trip with the Jungfrau region to fit in, it is the first thing we would cut — and we would tell you that rather than leave it on the itinerary to be discovered as filler.
Outside the chalet at Habkern
Outside the chalet at Habkern

Would we send you here at all?

Only if the rest of the week puts you within reach of it. This is a stop, not a destination — it earns its place because of what it sits between, and on a trip routed somewhere else entirely it is a long detour for an hour. Whether it belongs in your week depends on where you sleep the night before and the night after.

Knowing which stops are worth the detour for your route is the part we do.

Habkern in photographs

19 images, every one taken on one of our own trips.

The alphorn workshop, bells stacked along the wall — Habkern, Switzerland The alphorn workshop, bells stacked along the wall The village on its slope above the valley — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 The village on its slope above the valley A dark timber chalet on the village road — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 A dark timber chalet on the village road Horn sections and tools on the bench — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 Horn sections and tools on the bench The Bernatone Alphornbau sign above the shop — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 The Bernatone Alphornbau sign above the shop Finished alphorns leaning against the workshop wall — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 Finished alphorns leaning against the workshop wall Chalets and the mountain behind the village — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 Chalets and the mountain behind the village A painted Bernese farmhouse — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 A painted Bernese farmhouse The village at sunset from the hill — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 The village at sunset from the hill The road through the village, peaks beyond — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 The road through the village, peaks beyond Two alphorns being played in the workshop — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 Two alphorns being played in the workshop The bells of three alphorns on the floor — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 The bells of three alphorns on the floor
Show the other 7 photographs
Horns curving up the workshop wall — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 Horns curving up the workshop wall The bench and the tools of the trade — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 The bench and the tools of the trade Parts and offcuts hung up in the shop — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 Parts and offcuts hung up in the shop A carved and decorated horn bell — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 A carved and decorated horn bell Horns wrapped and ready to go — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 Horns wrapped and ready to go Breakfast before the day starts — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2026 Breakfast before the day starts Outside the chalet at Habkern — Habkern, Switzerland · June 2023 Outside the chalet at Habkern

This is one stop. The route is the harder part.

Notice what the guide above never tells you. It does not name a hotel, or say where to stay at all — it assumes you already have a bed. It gives you no way into Habkern from wherever you woke up, no view on whether it belongs on the second day of your trip or the ninth, and nothing about the week it rains.

Those answers change with your budget, your dates and who is traveling with you. Working them out, and booking them, is the job.

Tell us about your trip

The day above is free and yours to use. What it cannot do is decide where this fits in a two-week trip, which hotel works with your arrival time and your walking pace, what needs reserving months ahead, or what happens on the day it rains. That is the part you would be hiring me for, and planning starts at $750.

Or read the questions we are asked most — what a trip includes, how far ahead to book, deposits and cancellation.