Mürren

Before you go — there is no road, and that decides everything

• Mürren sits on a shelf 800 metres above the Lauterbrunnen valley floor and no road reaches it. Everything and everyone arrives by cable car. That is why it is quiet, and it is also why the logistics need thinking about before you turn up with luggage.
• Two ways in. From Lauterbrunnen, a cable car to Grütschalp and then a small panorama train along the shelf. Or from Stechelberg, the big Schilthorn cableway up through Gimmelwald.
• The trap: the Lauterbrunnen–Grütschalp–Mürren line closes for maintenance, and in 2026 those closures ran 13 April to 10 July and 26 October to 6 November. If your dates fall in a window like that, the Grütschalp route simply does not exist and everything has to come via Stechelberg. Check it before you book a room up here.

What it costs — checked September 2026

• Lauterbrunnen to Mürren via Grütschalp: about CHF 11.80 each way, so roughly CHF 24 return.
• Lauterbrunnen to Mürren via Stechelberg and Gimmelwald: about CHF 16.40 each way, roughly CHF 33 return.
• Stechelberg to the Schilthorn and back: about CHF 115, which passes through Mürren on the way.
• A Swiss Half Fare Card or Swiss Travel Pass cuts these. Work out your week’s pass before buying anything here.

Morning — Walk the village end to end

• Mürren is one street and a scattering of lanes, and you can walk the whole of it in twenty minutes. Do that first, slowly. Dark timber chalets, painted facades, a church, hay barns still standing between the hotels.
• The reason people stop mid-sentence here is the other side of the valley. The Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau stand directly opposite at eye level, across a gap of empty air. There is no foreground and no build-up. They are simply there, all day, from the street.
• Look down as well as across. From the eastern edge the valley floor is a thousand feet below, with waterfalls coming off the far wall in white threads.

Budget tips

• The village, the street and the view cost nothing, and they are the main event.
• Buy food in Lauterbrunnen before you come up. There is a small shop in Mürren and it carries mountain prices for the obvious reason.

Midday — Up, or along

• The Schilthorn is the big-ticket option: the cableway climbs above the village to Birg and then to Piz Gloria, the revolving restaurant on the summit. It is genuinely spectacular and it is the most expensive thing in the valley.
• Go on a clear morning or do not go. The photographs on this page include our own visit in cloud: at 2,970 metres you are inside it, the ridge appears for ten seconds at a time, and the CHF 115 buys you a white room with a view of the inside of a cloud. The webcam is free and it is the single most valuable thing you can look at before committing.
• Allmendhubel, the little funicular from the top of the village, costs a fraction of it and puts you on the alp in ten minutes with the same wall of mountains in front of you and a playground for children at the top.
• From there the paths run across open pasture — the Northface Trail, wooden animals carved along the way, cattle, and the whole Jungfrau massif on your right the entire time.

Budget tips

• If the Schilthorn is not in the budget, Allmendhubel is not a consolation prize. The view is the same wall of peaks; you are simply lower and it costs a fraction as much.
• Walking down from Allmendhubel to Mürren is easy, well signed, and free. Ride up, walk back.

Afternoon — The valley, from the other end of a rope

• The path down to Gimmelwald is short, steep and beautiful, and Gimmelwald is smaller and plainer than Mürren in a way people either love or find dull.
• For anyone who wants the valley from a different angle, there is a via ferrata between Mürren and Gimmelwald — cable, rungs and a wire bridge strung across the gorge. It is a serious undertaking with proper equipment, not a walkway with a handrail.
• The alps above the village in June are full of flowers, and the paths up there are almost empty even when the village is busy.

Budget tips

• Walking to Gimmelwald and taking the cable car back is the cheapest way to see two villages in an afternoon.
• The via ferrata needs a kit and, unless you have done one before, a guide. Price it properly rather than improvising.

Evening — Why staying the night is the whole point

• Almost everyone here is on a day trip, and the last cable cars take them all away. What is left is a village of a few hundred people with the Jungfrau going pink across the valley.
• In winter the same street under snow, with the peaks lit gold in the late sun, is one of the best things in the Alps and there is nobody in it.

Budget tips

• A night in Mürren costs more than a night in Lauterbrunnen, and the evening you get for it is not available at any price down in the valley. This is the one place in the region where we would tell you to spend the extra.
• Check the time of the last lift down if you are not staying. Getting it wrong means a very long walk or a very expensive taxi boat of a night.