Via Alpina Walking Holiday

After breakfast at the hotel this morning, collect your packed lunch and take a stroll from the hotel down to the station in Lenk and catch the train back via Spiez to Frutigen. From here, take the PostAuto service to Adelboden. Upon arrival, follow the Via Alpina hiking signs which are clearly marked. In the village, the path turns off and leads down to the Allebach River. Here you have a clear view of the Engstligen Falls and Wildstrubel Mountain behind. Leaving the paved road you then take the gravel trail along the Allebach.

A narrow path takes you up to Adelboden Geils via Ribestalde and Adelboden Bergläger. From there a paved trail meanders through a beautiful moor landscape up to Hahnenmoos Pass. Form the top of the pass you overlook a wide panorama and the view across the beautiful Simmental Valley opens up. On a gravel path and through the meadows the trail passes countless cosy chalets on the way down to the Lenk train station. Dinner is served back at the hotel. 

Today, it’s time to join stage 16 of the Via Alpina and head to Gstaad. Today’s hike is longer than yesterday’s, so an early start is recommended. The path to Gstaad is well-marked and offers many highlights along the route. The ascent to the Wallegg-Stube restaurant is relatively steep. Impressively, the river has carved out metre-deep cylindrical pools in the rock here over hundreds of years. The path then continues uphill, winding its way through rolling meadows and over the tree line.

Passing between the peaks off the Wildstrubel and Wildhorn, over 3,200 metres high, the Tierberg comes into view on the other side, towards Adelboden. Its cave was probably the highest Alpine resting place in the Neolithic period. Via the Trüttlisberg Pass, the highest point of the stage, leave the municipal boundary with Gstaad and now look down into the magnificent Turbach valley. The panoramic view to the south stretches from the famous Lake Lauenen to the Geltenschuss. This impressive waterfall 100 metres high has multiple levels. Finally, you’ll reach Gstaad, where you might like to treat yourself to a well-earned drink before returning to Lenk for dinner.

For the penultimate day of your holiday, you have a wonderful journey aboard the Golden Pass train, which runs from nearby Zweisimmen over to Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva. Once in Montreux, you connect onto a Swiss Intercity around to Geneva and finally a French regional train across to Lyon for a night at the Pullman Lyon (or similar).

Board a civilised-timed late-morning today through to Lille, bypassing Paris. Once you reach the capital of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, check in for an afternoon Eurostar back to London, arriving in ample time to be able to return to most parts of the UK that same evening.