Lenk and Gstaad, June 2025

[Pauline]

After that first glitch with all the construction near the apartment this was an excellent holiday. We liked the places we stayed in. We did a lot of walking or hiking. The weather was sunny and hot almost the whole time (3 1/2 weeks). A little too hot on a few days. It was a good idea to split the time between Lenk and Gstaad. Even though they are close they are very different places. Lenk is still my preferred destination but being in Gstaad and Saanen was fun.

A Night in Obernai​

We drove our usual route home - from Gstaad to Bern to Basel, then north in France along the German border. Usually we stay in Colmar but this time we stayed in a smaller town 30 minutes further north - Obernai. This was on the recommendation of someone I follow on Instagram.

We loved Obernai and will stay there again. It is much smaller than Colmar so easier to get in and out. Colmar has a fabulous Thai restaurant but Obernai has a really good Lebanese restaurant so we had a good vegetarian dinner. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the main square, Hotel La Diligence.

The next day we did the long, boring drive on autoroute across northern France and spent the night in Arras, our usual stop.

The next day into the Chunnel and home. It felt like we had been away a long time and I was happy to be home.

Heatwave in France​

We did the drive home during a heatwave, and it was hot. Over 90F both days in France. The AC in the car saved us but when we stopped at rest areas the wall of heat hit. Both our hotels had AC but I still really felt the heat.

There is no AC in the Chunnel and you have to have your car turned off. They handed out paper fans and spray cans of Evian.

We came home to a 3 day heatwave in the UK but in Dorset it was only 77F. We don’t have AC here but I have fans going in the house.

It was much hotter than usual our whole time in Switzerland, hotter than last year. There has been more very hot temperatures in France, Spain and Italy. It is hard to know how to plan.

Main square in Obernai.

Walking the ramparts in Obernai.

 

[wco81]

Beautiful!

I went to Lugano for two summers in a row, including last July. They don't have the small mountain villages like the ones in your photo, though you can reach some lovely places on the train.

One thing stood out in the photos of the walking paths were all the tall grasses. Do they ever get mowed? I understand they are often full of ticks, especially at lower elevations -- even the Alps may not be able to escape this particular threat owing to climate change.

Did you get a Half Fare Card to save some money on the cable cars? Though you don't get as much out of the Card if you don't take trains.

 

[Pauline]

We stayed in Locarno (near Lugano) years ago and took a bus back into the mountains to small villages. They were pretty remote.

I worry about ticks but more here at home than in Switzerland. Here we walk through long grasses but in Switzerland the trails are usually well defined and gravel or dirt. You don’t walk through the fields of long grass. They mow them twice a year - for hay for the animals. Any field that can be mowed for hay is mowed. I always wear long trousers when hiking because of the possibility of ticks.

On this trip we took cable cars twice - the gondola in Lenk and the chairlift near Gstaad. When you rent a place you pay a daily tourist tax and get a card that lets you ride buses and trains for free. You get a discount on some mountain rides. This changes every year it seems. The mountain rides are expensive - the chairlift is 35CHF return - but are less expensive than some more popular areas, like Grindelwald.

So it wasn’t worth buying a Half Fare card for us.

When planning a trip to Switzerland you have to look at all the options for mountain rides. Does the area off a pass that makes it cheaper? Lenk used to do this. Does the ride give the 50% discount with the Half Fare Card? Some don’t. What do you get with the local tourist card? What rail passes are available?

Since we drive there we only use the trains and buses locally and these are free with our tourist cards. And we don’t use many cable cars since most of the hikes we do are from the village.

 

[Pauline]

I Googled ticks in the Swiss Alps and it says yes there are ticks but not above 1500 meters. Lenk is at 1000 meters, so ticks are possible but I’ve never seen any. The mountain gondola goes up to 1800 meters, so no ticks up there.

Protection against ticks

Ticks are widespread in Switzerland. Tick bites can be dangerous and cause Lyme disease or meningitis. Protect yourself, children and pets when you are outdoors.

www.ch.ch

Yuk. Thanks for bringing this up. Maybe I’ll get some spray for our shoes as suggested on that page.

 

[wco81]

There are some areas in the South Tyrol in Austria and the Dolomites where you can get a pass good for 4 or 5 days or a week for like €50-60 and they cover most of the cable cars in a region but you typically can only visit one or two of them a day in the summer, driving between them.

I’ve gotten the Berner-Oberland pass before, over 230 CHF, for 4 days. It covers all the cable cars except Jungfrau and Schilthorn, which you may not be able to visit depending on the weather.

The Alps seem to have so much infrastructure for people who want to hike, more than any other mountain ranges I can think of. Not just serious hikers but people who want to do easy day walks at elevation, not climbing too much in elevation just enough to reach all the sublime places.

In school I read about the notion of the sublime as described by English poets who had the fortune to visit the Alps. But it wouldn’t be until decades later that I got to experience it for myself.