Interlaken, Switzerland

Interlaken sits on a narrow strip of land between two turquoise lakes, Thun and Brienz, with the Jungfrau massif's three peaks visible from most of the town. The Jungfraujoch cog railway — marketed as the 'Top of Europe' — climbs to just over 11,000 feet and is the single excursion most family visits are built around.

There's no need to fly directly into a small Alpine airport: nonstop flights land in Zurich, and the train onward to Interlaken takes about two hours through scenery genuinely worth the ride rather than a transit to be endured. Switzerland's rail system runs frequently enough that we rarely book a rental car for this trip.

Summer (June to September) brings hiking, lake swimming, and the Jungfraujoch train at its most reliable — winter storms occasionally close the summit in colder months. Ski season (December to March) draws a different crowd to the same base town. Either season books out hotel rooms well ahead of the date, more so than most European city trips.

Interlaken sits between two lakes (Thun and Brienz, both a striking turquoise from glacial silt) and functions mainly as the gateway town to the Jungfrau region — the actual mountain scenery, including the Jungfraujoch, Europe's highest railway station, is a cogwheel train ride up from town rather than in Interlaken itself. The Swiss rail network is precise and frequent enough that day trips to Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen and Mürren are all straightforward without a car.

Three to four nights covers the main lift-accessed viewpoints and at least one full hiking or ski day. It suits outdoor-focused travelers specifically, and Switzerland's rail network makes a car unnecessary — often a disadvantage rather than a convenience given limited parking in the mountain villages.

Getting there: About 8.5 to 9.5h nonstop to Zurich, plus a scenic train to Interlaken. We compare that routing against the alternatives before booking, and help plan the trip's dates around June to September (hiking), December to March (ski season).

Interlaken sits, as its name suggests, directly between two lakes — Thun and Brienz — a position that made it a resort town for British and European aristocracy as early as the 19th century, well before adventure sports gave it a second identity. The town has no major peaks of its own; its real draw is as the gateway to the Jungfrau region, and the Jungfraujoch, reachable by a cogwheel railway completed in 1912 after 16 years of tunneling through the Eiger and Mönch, is marketed as 'Top of Europe' at 3,454 meters, the highest railway station on the continent. Swiss German, not standard German, is the everyday spoken language here, distinct enough that even German visitors often can't follow it conversationally, though standard German is used in writing and understood by everyone. Swiss cuisine in this region runs on alpine dairy: fondue and raclette both originated as ways to use up hard mountain cheese in winter, traditionally eaten communally from a shared pot or grill rather than plated individually. The region's adventure-sports reputation — canyoning, paragliding, skydiving — developed almost entirely in the last few decades on top of a town whose older identity was genteel lake-resort tourism, a contrast still visible in Interlaken's grand 19th-century hotels along the Höheweg promenade.