Cruise journey along Lake Brienz : Fall colours in Switzerland

On my trip to Switzerland , I wanted to include one boat ride along the famous Swiss alpine lakes. But there are three famous lake cruises in the region, which are Lake Thun , Lake Brienz and Lake Luzern. All of these three lakes are stunning, so it was so hard to choose just one, but after reading lots of articles and tips from tripadvisor , I chose lake Brienz.

This clock showed the departure time of the cruise. Although it is not really necessary to buy cruise tickets in advance, you should definitely check the departure time of the cruise online first .

The journey started from interlaken , which is famous resort town to base yourself if you are exploring the central of Switzerland. Our base was from Lauterbrunnen which was 30 min train ride from interlaken. The meaning of interlaken is between the lakes, so it means it is located between the two alpine lakes , which are lake thun and lake brienz. Cruise terminal was just outside the train station ( interlaken ost).

Although it was just early October, it was chilly because of the wind .

This was the cruise we took. There is a 1st and a 2nd class section. First class is located on the upper deck, Both decks have indoor small restaurants. Although our tickets were second class, we managed ourselves up there to get a peak of the view.

We got ourselves at the back of the cruise, there were lots of empty seats around. But the front section was slightly crowded, but it was also very cold because of the strong wind.

I finally settled myself on the side benches to escape the freezing wind.

The ferry left the terminal on time. The lake was so beautiful , the water was turquoise coloured , the scenery was surrounded by mountains with gorgeous autumn coloured trees and beautiful swiss style houses. Of course, I had to take so many pictures a long the journey.

We bought Swiss half fare card , so the cruise price was half price. But still it was pretty expensive at 32.80 CHF (one way) which is almost the same in the USD . If you had swiss travel pass , this cruise cost would be free . The duration was about 1 hour 20 min from the interlaken to the town of Brienz.

There are a few stops along the way at the little villages . You can also have the option to hop off and visit them, then catch the next boat.

One of the popular stop was Iseltwald village. There was this gorgeous castle near by.

The boat made another stop at Giessbach, which is known for its waterfall and also a grand 19th century hotel. This stop was more popular with the visitors as more than half of the tourists from our boat dropped off at this point.

There was a funicular that you can take to the top. We didn't made a stop here as we had a train to catch from brienz town. But we did passed by and had a view of waterfall from the boat, which was nice.

If you want to stay at one of those cute lake side villages, I am sure there would be several accommodation options .Tips from me is to use google map and find some of them.

The surrounding mountains views were stunning , but the weather again was gloomy. If you have a particular place that you wanted to visit in Switzerland, I highly recommend to have extra days for the good weather . The weather in the alps is pretty unpredictable and good weather and sunshine make all the difference.

We finally arrived the town of brienz.If you have a few days, there are lots of hiking trail and places that are worth to explore. But for us it was time to off to catch the train to Luzern, what a magnificent cruise ride!

Thank you for reading.. Have you been to any of the scenic cruise ride ?let me know in the comment , I really appreciate the up-vote if you like it and resteem with your friends who might enjoy reading this.

Check out my other Switzerland Travel articles here

• 12 Spectacular pictures that will make you want to take jungfrau train
• 8 Most Beautiful Train Rides in Switzerland
• Travel from Venice to Spiez
• Spiez to Lauterbrunnen
• Arriving to magical lauterbrunnen
• Journey to top of Europe
• The Aletsch Glacier , the longest glacier in the Swiss Alps
• Inside the Ice Palace under the Jungfrau Mountain peak
• An afternoon in Chapel bridge, Lucerne

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