Gimmelwald is a RIDICULOUSLY scenic and photogenic village in the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland. It is a tiny (population 130) hamlet half-way up the mountain with no roads leading to it so it is only accessible by hiking or by cable car, either from below (Stechelberg) or from above (Mürren). Of the various hiking paths leading to Gimmelwald, one involves a demanding difficult cliff walk with zipline, tight rope walk and hanging bridge (see below). Most of the residents are farmers with dairy cattle making cheese. The town is so small that there are no stores, no place to buy anything. Instead they have several ‘selbstbedienung’ (self-service) stations where they place cheese or sausage along with a coin box in refrigerators along the path and trust the honesty of the patrons. I booked an Airbnb in town which turned out to be the well-known Pension Gimmelwald, one of a few places to stay and one of only two places to eat in town. Of course this isolation also means that it avoids the crowds of tourists present in all other Swiss towns.
Gimmelwald is a great base for hiking in this part of the Alps. The lifts that service Gimmelwald are in the Lauterbrunnen valley and are run by a different company than those that service Jungfrau and Grindlewald. This is a nuisance since it means that you need to buy two different passes to access the lifts, trains and buses in the area. And the passes are not cheap. But since I was going to be here for 4 days and visiting both valleys, I decided to go ahead and spring for both passes. It does provide an advantage that one doesn’t need to stand in line at each lift, some of which can be lengthy, to purchase tickets.
A disadvantage of staying in Gimmelwald which I had not anticipated was that the cable car lifts going either up or down did not start until 8 AM. This meant that it was difficult to get sunrise photos, unless you get up super early and hike quickly. It is also in a valley so that the early morning light only hits the distant mountain peaks. Likewise in the evening dinner in the pension was always at 7 PM so late afternoon photography was also difficult. So there were few chances for golden hour photography.
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