Book Interlaken attraction tickets

Interlaken sits between two lakes, the Thunersee to the west and the Brienzersee to the east, with the Aare river threading between them and the Bernese Oberland rising dramatically on every side. The name itself is simply Latin for 'between the lakes', and the geography is so literal, so unambiguous, that the town has never needed to oversell itself. The mountains do that work. On a clear day, the trio of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau fills the southern skyline from almost anywhere on the Höheweg, the long promenade that forms the town's spine, and that view has been drawing visitors since the era of grand European tours in the nineteenth century.

The town divides loosely into Interlaken Ost and Interlaken West, each with its own railway station, and first-time visitors quickly learn to navigate by those two anchors. Ost is the departure point for the Bernese Oberland Railway and the famous rack railway that climbs toward the Jungfraujoch, while West connects to Thun and the broader Swiss rail network. Between the two stations, the Höheweg and the Kursaal gardens give the town its unhurried, slightly old-fashioned resort character, a place that has been receiving international guests long enough to have developed a quiet confidence about it.