Swiss Alps Family Walking Tour

Itinerary at a glance

We meet in Bern for a stroll and a train ride to Schonried (3 nights). We wake in our alpine chalet and head for the remote Färmelvalley to visit a small school where one teacher handles all 9 grades. While the kids join a craftsperson in a silhouette cutting class, a local expert takes the adults for a nature walk in the lush upper Simmental Valley. Then we hop on mountain bikes for a fun, scenic ride along the Simme River.

On a very cool multi-sport day, we take a guided glacier walk, ride a chairlift to a mountaintop lunch overlooking the Matterhorn, meet an authentic dog musher – and take his teams of Siberian Huskies out onto the glacier. Add in visits to a bakery and chocolatier, and it’s quite a day!

Mid-week we're invited to a private farm where they milk cows and make cheese. In the afternoon, our friends cook us an outdoor lunch over a wood fire – then harness up their unexpected herd of llamas so we can go for a mini-trek!

From our Grindelwald chalet-hotel (3 nights), we’ll go river-rafting on the River Lütschine. Then a steamboat ride on Lake Thun drops us at the Castle of Spiez to explore its ramparts and suits of armor. In the morning, a funicular delivers us up to a high meadow for a walk to Mürren, a village so high that there are no cars. A 2-stage cable-car ascent drops us at a revolving restaurant at the summit of the Schilthorn, made famous in a James Bond movie. And we’ll visit spectacular Trümmelbach Falls, the most impressive falls in the Bernese Oberland.