Day 6 – Wandering From Thun To Merligen

Today we took the train to Thun, a fairly large town on the far end of the Thunersee. From there we followed a wanderweg along the lakeshore to Merligen where we caught the antique paddlewheel steamer Blümlisalp for the cruise back to Interlaken.

This was another of those days when we had to watch the weather forecasts and match our outing plans to the available windows of reasonable weather. Cindy became a master at combining on-line Swiss weather maps, real-time webcams from the tourist destinations, and the various hiking guides to figure out some way for us to get outside each day. As it turns out we were able to hike all 14 days that were available to us this trip, largely due to our schedule flexibility.

Thun’s metro area population of 90,000 makes it the largest Swiss city that we visited this trip aside from our gateway city of Zurich. Thun lies where the River Aare flows out of the Thunersee and therefore the residents enjoy both a lakeside and riverfront lifestyle. It is about 30 miles from Brienz and just 20 miles south of Bern, the Swiss capital. Thun’s economic engine is fueled by tourism, high tech manufacturing, publishing, and the food industry. It is the site of Switzerland’s largest military base, which explains why we saw any number of uniformed troops on the trains while we were traveling in this area.

Schloss Thun (or Thun Castle) dominates the city skyline. The castle was built between 1180 to 1190 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen. Inherited from the Duke by the House of Kyburg in 1218, the castle was subsequently taken over by the Canton of Bern in 1384. It remained a cantonal property for over six centuries (until 2006) when it was purchased by the city of Thun. The castle then housed a regional court for several years but it has since been converted to a museum of local history. To give some sense of perspective, the Schloss Thun was celebrating its tricentennial right about the same time that Columbus sailed the ocean blue …

Our day started with the 0838 InterRegional from Brienz with quick, easy connections at Interlaken Ost and Spiez. We arrived in Thun about 9:30 AM under mostly cloudy skies but it looked like we should be OK weather-wise for at least several hours. From the bahnhof we strolled into the Old Town area and picked up a lovely riverfront promenade. The promenade took us out to Lake Thun where we easily located the yellow signs that indicated the start of our wanderweg. As it turns out this trail is another section of the Jakobsweg from our Day 2 hike.

The wanderweg signs initially took us on quiet surface streets through some nice residential areas before turning a lot more rural. The trail took us a total of eight miles along the northern shore of Lake Thun, all the while with lovely views of the lake and the snow-capped mountains on the southern shore. We passed through several towns like Hilterfingen, Oberhofen, and Gurten before stopping for a late lunch in Merligen. As we sat on a bench in the small lakefront park adjacent to the Merligen tourism office the weather started to turn. The clouds were getting darker and we could see rain falling in several places around the lake so we were talking about our alternatives for after lunch. Some light showers helped us to decide on taking the lake steamer back to Interlaken where we could pick up the train for Brienz. The next boat was scheduled at the Merligen dock in about 1/2 hour so our timing was perfect.

As luck would have it the boat turned out to be the paddlewheeler Blümlisalp. This historic vessel, built in 1906, normally makes just one round trip between Thun and Interlaken daily. This was no small boat – it’s almost 200 feet long with a capacity of 750 people, but I doubt that there were even 75 on board for this rainy weekday afternoon sailing. The ship has been painstakingly restored twice, including 2006 and is in great condition. The interior features a grand staircase worthy of Rose & Jack as well as an open well in the center where you can watch the mammoth crankshaft that turns the paddlewheels – see the video below.

We arrived at the steamer docks in Interlaken West a bit before 3:00 PM. These docks are adjacent to the bahnhof so we were easily able to make connections for the train to Brienz. We noticed throughout the trip that the BLS lake steamer schedules were nicely coordinated with the SBB train schedules, so much so that we essentially stopped checking the timetables. We just had faith that workable connections would be available when we reached our destination. One of the things that made Brienz such a good base for us was the frequency of both rail and steamer service along with the variety of connections available via Interlaken Ost.

Map

Photos

Weather

Meals