A rainy week in Interlaken

I booked seven nights in Interlaken in early June and watched the forecast turn from “mixed” to a flat grey line of rain icons four days before we flew. This isn’t a guide to Interlaken in good weather — plenty of those exist. It’s what actually happened over those seven days, what was worth paying for, and what I’d skip if I did the week again.

What a week of rain in the Bernese Oberland actually looks like

The first thing to accept is that “rain in Interlaken” doesn’t mean rain everywhere at once. The valley floor at 568 metres can be drizzling while Grindelwald, twenty minutes away, sits in flat cloud with zero visibility, and Bern, fifty minutes north, is dry. We checked the seasonal planning tool and the regional webcams every morning rather than trusting a single app, and that habit alone saved two of the seven days.

Day one was a write-off by design — we arrived late, and it rained hard enough that even the short walk from Interlaken West to the hotel left us soaked. We ate at the hotel and wrote off the evening. Not a mistake, just a reasonable call: don’t plan anything for arrival night in a place with this much weather variance.

Day two we gambled on the mountains anyway. Checking webcams at 6am showed Kleine Scheidegg in cloud but the Jungfraujoch summit station reporting partial breaks, so we took the early train. This is the one call I’d defend without reservation: we booked through a day trip to the Jungfraujoch from Interlaken rather than piecing together tickets ourselves, mostly so a delay or cancellation wasn’t our problem to untangle.

The summit cleared for about forty minutes around midday — long enough for the Sphinx terrace and the ice palace, not long enough to feel like we’d seen the full Jungfraujoch experience. Read that as a coin flip that landed on the right side, not a guarantee.

The lakes saved the week

If there’s one genuinely reliable rainy-day activity in this region, it’s the boats. Lake Thun and Lake Brienz both run scheduled services with heated, covered cabin decks, so the rain becomes background noise rather than a reason to cancel. We did the Lake Brienz boat trip on day three specifically because the water there turns that improbable turquoise-grey even under cloud — it isn’t a sunshine-dependent colour, unlike most alpine views. Iseltwald, the small village made briefly famous online, is a fifteen-minute stop on that route and takes about twenty minutes to see properly; we didn’t linger.

We also rented e-bikes on the one half-dry afternoon we got, using a guided e-bike route around both lakes and the ruined castle above town, which turned out to be the most efficient way to cover ground between rain showers — you can outrun a passing cell on a bike in a way you can’t on foot.

A second e-bike day, this one out to Giessbach Falls along the shore path, using a similar e-bike tour out to Iseltwald and Giessbach, was wetter than planned but the waterfall itself looks better with more water in it, which is one of the few genuine silver linings of a rainy week here.

Bern was the best decision of the trip

By day four we needed somewhere entirely indoor-friendly and took the fifty-minute train to Bern. The old town’s arcades — nearly four miles of covered walkways under the townhouses — mean you can shop, eat, and sightsee without an umbrella at all.

We followed roughly the route in the Bern old town walking guide and it filled a full day without repetition: the Zytglogge, the cathedral, the bear park (miserable in rain but so were the bears, so it felt appropriate), and two museums we wouldn’t otherwise have prioritised. This was the single best rainy-day decision of the week, and I’d move it earlier in the itinerary next time rather than treating it as a rain-contingency.

What was a waste of money

The honest failure was paragliding. Interlaken sells this hard, launching tandem flights off the Hohematte all summer, but wind and low cloud grounded every operator for four of our seven days. We paid a rebooking fee once, watched it get cancelled again, and stopped trying. If I ran this week again I would not prepay for any weather-dependent adventure sport — paragliding, canyoning, the open-cabin cable cars — before day five or six, once you can see which days are actually flyable. Booking early to “guarantee a slot” guarantees nothing here except a rebooking fee.

Harder Kulm closed outright for wind on two separate days, with the funicular company offering rebooking but no cash refund. We eventually got up on day six, and the view over the two lakes from 1,322 metres was worth the wait, but it cost us two wasted mornings of checking and re-checking before that.

Ballenberg in waterproofs, not an umbrella

We’d built in a day at Ballenberg, the open-air museum of historic Swiss farmhouses, assuming it would be a write-off in rain. It wasn’t, but only because we’d packed proper waterproof jackets rather than umbrellas — the site is enormous and mostly outdoor pathways between buildings, and an umbrella is useless on the exposed hillside sections. The craft demonstrations — bread baking, weaving, cheese-making — mostly moved indoors and were cut shorter than the schedule promised, but the buildings themselves are the real content, and rain on a wood-shingle roof from 1750 is, if anything, atmospheric.

The itinerary I’d actually repeat

Given the week again, I’d front-load Bern and the lake boats, keep the Jungfraujoch as an early opportunistic call rather than a fixed booking, push adventure sports to the back half, and treat Harder Kulm and Ballenberg as flexible half-days rather than anchors.

For anyone building their own version of this, the general framework holds up in the bad-weather guide and the rainy-day activities list, both of which we more or less improvised in real time. We never made it to the thermal baths, which in hindsight should have been day one instead of the hotel sulk — nothing fixes a wet arrival like a hot pool.

FAQ: a rainy week in Interlaken

Should I still book the Jungfraujoch if the forecast is bad?

Check the live webcams the morning of, not the app forecast the night before. If Kleine Scheidegg is in cloud, you will pay full price to stand inside a station with no view. We went anyway on day three and it cleared for forty minutes; it was a gamble that paid off once.

What’s the single best rainy-day activity in Interlaken itself?

A lake cruise. The boats run in steady rain and the cabin decks are heated and covered, so you still see Lake Thun or Lake Brienz without getting wet.

Did the funiculars and cable cars close because of the weather?

Harder Kulm closed for wind twice in our week, with no refund beyond rebooking. Grindelwald First stayed open under cloud but the view platform was pointless.

Is Ballenberg worth it in the rain?

Half worth it. The open-air museum is mostly outdoors between wooden farmhouses, so bring proper waterproofs, not an umbrella, and expect the craft demonstrations to be cut short.

What did you waste money on?

A paragliding slot booked twice and cancelled twice for wind and low cloud. We paid the rebooking fee once before giving up. If your week is genuinely a week, don’t prepay adventure sports until day five or six.

Are museums and indoor options enough to fill a rainy week?

Just about, if you widen the radius to Bern. Interlaken itself has maybe a day and a half of solid indoor content before you’re repeating yourself.