5 Day Trips from Bern, Switzerland

Bern is pretty much smack dab in the middle of Switzerland, making it a great home base to go on some epic day trips. We ended up spending a little more than a week exploring Bern and the surrounding areas, so we put together a list of our top five day trips from the capital of Switzerland. All of these trips are under an hour from Bern, and as with any drive in Switzerland, are through some insanely beautiful scenic Swiss roads.

1. Chateau de Chillon:

Located on the east end of Lake Geneva, Chateau de Chillon is an amazingly well-preserved castle that dates back at least 1,000 years! About an hour drive from both Bern and Geneva, Chateau de Chillion is a great day trip while visiting either city. It’s an incredible castle to see, which is why it’s on numerous lists of the most beautiful castles in the world! Not to mention, the views from outside aren’t too bad either.

2. Cheese & Chocolate:

Two of our favorite things are cheese and chocolate, and Switzerland is busting out of the seems with both of them. If you’re visiting Switzerland you’re almost obligated to indulge your taste buds in both of these things, so we planned a day trip to visit La Maison Du Gruyere and Maison Cailler.

La Maison Du Gruyere, known in English as The House of Gruyere, is where we went on a sensory journey devoted to the making of this delicious cheese. So move over House of Dior, we’d much rather be surrounded by endless cheese wheels than high-end fashion.

The cost of the visit is CHF 7 (per adult), and our ticket was an actual piece of cheese… does life get any better!? The cheese ticket included samples of Gruyere at 6, 8 and 10 months maturity. We also planned our visit to the factory when the cheese was being made, which takes places between 9 am – 11 am and between 1 pm – 2:30 pm. We visited early in the morning to get our cheese fix filled right away!

After eating all the Gruyere, we moved on to the one and only Maison Cailler, which honestly blew the cheese making factory out of the park. The cost of visiting Maison Cailler is CHF 12 (per adult) and is well worth the money. When purchasing our ticket, we were given a designated time slot with a group to go on the tour.

The tour itself was a walking mini amusement ride, which gave us information about Cailler without being boring! At the end of the tour, we were greeted with endless samples of chocolate! We didn’t think these words would ever come out of our mouths, but it was too much chocolate!

We probably had 20 samples of every Cailler chocolate under the sun! We rolled ourselves out of the factory and made our way back to Bern with two bags of chocolate to eat later on.

3. Interlaken:

If you’re headed to Interlaken, we’d suggest growing a pair of cojones and taking part in an outdoor activity. While visiting Interlaken we found ourselves in a field surrounded by paragliders landing all around us! The views from Interlaken are top notch, so we could see why people would want to get in an airplane and get up close and personal with the snow capped mountains. Interlaken is located between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz and if you’re not into jumping out of planes the scenery here is worth a visit by itself!

4. Thun:

A 30-minute ride from Bern, Thun is a beautiful town with a lot of old school charm. The Bernese Alps surrounds the town, and its centerpiece is a castle situated in the middle of the town from the 12th century.  We only spent about an hour in Thun but could have easily spent more.

The main attraction we checked out was the Flower Bridge (Vieille Ville de Thoune). The old wooden bridge is used daily to control the water flow of the river that runs through the town. It’s a great place to stop and take a picture as the bridge has beautiful garden boxes hanging from the sides with cascading with flowers.

Also, if you want to do a little swan spotting in Switzerland, you won’t be disappointed when you visit Thun. Swans are swimming all along the river, but be careful if you try to take a selfie with them… they tend to be a bit aggressive!

5. Grindelwald:

We made our way to Grindelwald completely by accident. We followed a road with a beautiful snow-capped mountain in the distance… and ended up in Grindelwald. Isn’t that how all great adventures should start!?

Stumbling upon Grindelwald, located in the Jungfrau Region, brought us up close and personal with the Bernese Alps. Since we were visiting in September, we didn’t get to take advantage of the word class skiing this area of Switzerland is known for, but we did go on some small hikes and enjoyed a few brews with an incredible view!

One of the most popular things to do in this area is to visit “Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe”. It gets its name by being the highest railway station in Europe located 3,454 meters above sea level. We didn’t do this as it was too expensive for our budget… but when we become billionaires we will be back!

The town of Grindelwald is adorable and is worth a visit even if you don’t make your way to the Top of Europe! Most of the homes, known as chalets, are made of wood with sloping roofs and adorned with brightly colored flower baskets. We made a promise to ourselves that one day we will have a house in Grindelwald!

Need some tips on what to do while you’re actually in the city of Bern?  Check out our other blog post, with our top 4 reasons to visit Bern, Switzerland.