The peak of Jungfrau Mountain rises against the sky. Photograph © CORBIS

Swiss Idyll
By Mel White

Grindelwald, I instantly decided, has the prettiest setting of any town I have ever seen. The most wonderful setting, it might be more exact to say. That idea came to mind at what I'm sure is the same point it has struck any number of travelers before me: as my train curved out of the canyon of the Black Lütschine River and gave me my first view of the hillside village, with some of the most wondrous of the Swiss Alps just beyond, rising through dark spruce forest into rock and snow and fearsome verticality.

"Bitte, ist das der Eiger?" I asked the passing conductor, pointing to the massive mountain outside and nearly exhausting my German vocabulary.

"Ja, Eiger," he nodded, hurrying on about his business. I knew the name already, from maps and such. I knew it—I just didn't expect the reality to be so...imminent.

My impression became a firm conviction as a gondola lifted me over streets and hotels and red-roofed chalets, and I looked back on Grindelwald in its little valley, a snug green bowl of woods and pastures some 40 miles southeast of Bern. A wrinkled gray glacier spilled from a narrow cross-valley above the town, near enough to wildflowery meadows that I had the illusion of being able to see high arctic winter and temperate summer in one glance. But dominating all, drawing the eye up past cliffs and crags, were The Alps—youngsters among mountains, geologically speaking, their angular ridges hardly eroded since truly immense glaciers sheared and shaped them in the last ice age.

The gondola disgorged me at a windblown station nearly 3,000 feet higher than Grindelwald, some few hundred feet above tree line. I set out across the tundra toward the pass at the end of the valley. The trail skirted the last snowbanks of the season, vanishing before my eyes on this June morning; rivulets of meltwater cascaded down every crease in the landscape. White crocuses carpeted the ground in numbers beyond imagining.

The Wetterhorn loomed ahead, its 12,143-foot peak hidden in the clouds. If it was true, as tradition says, that the forecast depends on whether you can see the notchy top of Weather Mountain, things did not look good for my hike. Patches of blue that had cracked the lowering sky earlier had vanished. A cold wind was picking up, and within an hour it was peppering my parka with flurries of sleet.

There was no need, though, for me to huddle in the lee of a ridge and lunch on the fruit in my pack. This was, after all, Switzerland; waiting at the pass was one of the mountain inns ubiquitous in these parts. I took a window table and ordered a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of Schweins-geschnetzeltes mit Rösti: a traditional regional dish of minced pork in mushroom sauce with crisp hash browns.

On this gray day I was almost alone in the wood-paneled dining room. The young blond waitress was not a Swiss Heidi but a Swedish Catrin, on the first day of her school-vacation job. She brought my drink quickly, with a sympathetic smile for my red face and cold hands.

"I just arrived here yesterday, and this morning it was snowing," she said. "The first day of summer, and it was snowing!"

We both looked out the window, down the valley, past the timberline spruce and the Alpine cliffs and the meadows and glaciers. And she sighed.

"But still, it is so beautiful...."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that. Lord Byron said it, and Goethe and Dumas and Mendelssohn and Twain. Whatever else they said, when they came to The Alps to philosophize or poeticize, harmonize or satirize, in the end they looked up at these peaks and said, It's so beautiful. The whole Romantic era notion of going to the mountains to look at them for pleasure, rather than fearing them as dragon-infested wastelands, was born in The Alps, and even in our pragmatic day, our done-that, so-what day, their beauty still has the power to overwhelm every other thought. Legions of tourists have followed in the footsteps of the first traveler-poets, and the Swiss have devised a great many things to occupy their time and lighten their wallets; gazing up and sighing remains everyone's favorite activity.

Much of this ardor was, and is, inspired by the part of German-speaking west-central Switzerland known as the Bernese Oberland—the highlands of the canton, or state, of Bern. At its heart is the venerable city of Interlaken, long the hub for exploring not only the region's mountains but also its lakes, scenic railways, medieval castles, and villages—many of which, like Grindelwald, 13 miles away, transform with the seasons from ski resorts to hiking centers.

Founded in 1133, Interlaken, true to its name, lies on a flat valley floor inter the lakes of Brienz and Thun, stretching respectively east and west and lapping at the rural outskirts of town. Arrayed to the south are the mighty Alps, most famously the Eiger (Ogre), the Mönch (Monk), and the Jungfrau (Virgin)—the trio that launched a million postcards.

I arrived in Interlaken by train from Bern on an afternoon when chaffinches were singing their hearts out in the parks; masses of flowers erupted from dooryard gardens everywhere. As I poked around town that first day, it proved to be impossible to find any locals who didn't speak English. The British adopted the Bernese Alps as their playground well over a century ago; as a result, you can go to the post office to ask for stamps, working to get your tongue around a handful of those two-dollar German words, only to have the clerk come back with, "Sure—you want 'em in airmail or regular?"

As early as the mid-19th century, people were complaining that Interlaken was getting too touristy. ("All Cambridge seems to be about," a British visitor grumped in 1875.) And it's true that souvenir stands, pizzerias, and chocolate shops line Interlaken's Höheweg (main street), flanked by Victorian-era hotels that look ready to host the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs—or at least the upstairs contingent.

On the other hand, Interlaken will never be confused with Atlantic City. It's still a small town, with green spaces a short stroll from anywhere, and a pleasant river (the Aare) to admire. And, of course, one does occasionally feel the need for pizza and chocolate. There are worse occupations than to sit at an outdoor table at the Restaurant des Alpes, where the sporty couples in matching leathers park their $15,000 motorcycles, and watch the world go by under the distant snowy crest of the Jungfrau: American teenagers with their backpacks, English squires in coats and ties, European women in an ounce and a half of spandex, Japanese tour groups taking pictures of each other. If nothing else, it makes a nice break from having poetic epiphanies about nature.

To get down to practical terms, the Bernese Oberland is a paradise for people who'd like to hike in the high Alps or stand on a cloud-ringed summit, but who'd be just as happy skipping the bothersome business of climbing up there. For this, give thanks to the region's staggeringly comprehensive transportation system, which, after decades of refinement, runs like a you-know-what-kind-of watch. It's simple and quick to get around, not only by train, bus, and boat, but by funicular, cable car, and ski lift as well.

The morning after my walk above Grindelwald, I took the 7:38 train from Interlaken south to Lauterbrunnen, partway up the valley of the White Lütschine. After spending a few minutes admiring the milky plume of Staubbach Falls, which drops nearly a thousand feet from the cliffs at the edge of the village—a star attraction anywhere else, but here it's only a warm-up act—I rode a funicular 2,200 vertical feet up the hillside and set out to walk to the resort town of Mürren, almost three miles away, and now just a gentle grade uphill.

More waterfalls plunged from the mountainsides across the valley, down cliffs that seemed still only partly healed from their glacial surgery some 20,000 years ago. Above, the Eiger, Münch, and Jungfrau imposed their rugged bulks into a sky as blue as yesterday's had been gray. Wispy clouds floated around their summits; the Ogre's formidable and infamous North Face, more than a mile of sheer rock where dozens of climbers have met their deaths, was softened a bit by what looked like a rakish white beret.

The path slipped in and out of dark woods, crossing meadows bright with wildflowers in constellations of pink, blue, yellow, and white. I soon passed through a small gate and walked smack into the middle of one of The Alps' most celebratedly picturesque attractions: a herd of brown-and-white cows, each wearing a leather collar and brass bell. Every summer for centuries, Swiss herdsmen have driven their cattle up into these mountains (the word "alp" means "a high-country pasture"), where they graze and grow fat and give the milk that makes the cheese for the world's ham sandwiches.

Up close, the cowbells jangle like a steel band of particularly unmusical musicians, but they mellow agreeably with distance. A herd of cows going to milking plays a cheery rhythmic tune that seems to be searching for a melody and not quite finding it; the sound rings in the memory of every Alpine hiker, the theme song of these sunny slopes.

The trail to Mürren, which hugs the cliff edge overlooking the Lauterbrunnen Valley—and which, I instantly decided, has the prettiest setting of any town I have ever seen— repaid slight effort with a spectacular sampling of Alpine scenery. My favorite trek, though, came a few days later, when I caught the train to Kleine Scheidegg, a station on the high, windblown ridge that divides the Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen Valleys.

It was another warm, almost cloudless day as I headed north from the rocky wall of the Eiger. Pipits hovered in courtship flight everywhere above the treeless tundra, pouring out their piping songs. I hadn't gone far when I spotted two chamois, the agile, striped-faced goatlike antelope of The Alps, ambling effortlessly along the edge of a cliff where it seemed nothing could possibly have found a foothold.

Alone in this stark, brilliant world, suspended between the snowy peaks and the green valley, I was pleased by the idea of traveling on a Wanderweg; I liked the ring of the German word. It simply means "hiking trail," but "wander way" seems more fitting to the contemplative stroll that the landscape deserves. Hiking, it seems to me, is what you do to get somewhere—and I was most certainly already there.

I returned to Kleine Scheidegg once more before leaving the mountains, this time changing trains for the cogwheel rail excursion to one of Switzerland's most renowned lookouts: the Jungfraujoch, a station perched in the snowbound saddle between the Jungfrau and the Mönch at an elevation of 11,333 feet. The restaurant here overlooks the top 9 miles of the 13-mile Aletsch Glacier, the longest in Europe; the dazzling view from the adjoining observatory extends on clear days north into Germany.

Still, I admit to appreciating the endlessly varied views looking up to the Alpine crests more than this one, vast as it is, looking down. These sharp-edged mountains, inspiration for so many lofty thoughts, are more affecting from below—more proudly regal, it seems, without the intimacy that comes with sharing the cold, rare air of their crowns.

There was one point in my trip when I felt it might actually be an advantage that I didn't speak German. This was at Interlaken's famed Tell-Freilichtspiele, an outdoor pageant dramatizing the beloved story of William Tell, who (I synopsize mercilessly) refused to kowtow to the tyrannical Austrians ruling Switzerland in the 13th century, was forced to shoot an apple off his son's head with his crossbow, did it, assassinated the evil Habsburgs' local flunky, and helped set in motion the events that led to Swiss independence. Which is not bad work for a fellow who, unromantic modern historians say, probably never existed.

Local amateur actors have been presenting the Tell story in Interlaken's Rugen Woods since 1912; the performance I saw was the 997th in what has become, in many cases, a family tradition. Before the show, I met a man who had been acting various parts for 44 years and had died more than a hundred times.

But back to the language. I have a feeling that Friedrich Schiller's 1804 drama, declaimed by actors trying to stir the emotions of people in the back row of a 2,200-seat pavilion, might have been—had I been able to follow the earnest poetics of the script—a little much. As it was, I could ignore all that and simply enjoy the spectacle, which turned out to be high-spirited, colorful fun. Flower-garlanded cows lumbered across the stage; horses galloped in and out; kids chased dogs and vice versa; all the while, the downtrodden yearned for freedom. Like the rest of the audience, I sympathized with the persecuted common folk, despite the fact that the rich bad guys got to wear much flashier costumes.

"The talk is of independence," the woman next to me whispered at one point. "Switzerland is still very much like that. It's in our blood. We're very reluctant to join up with the other countries in the European Union."

At the end, with the oppressors' castle in flames and peasants freed from bondage, independence is what the Swiss in their forest villages win. "Das Land ist frei!" a patriot shouts—and after 700 years, free this land remains.

The lights come up, and the actors return for a well-deserved bow, magically transforming into 20th-century shopkeepers and cooks and housewives again, and the cows are led back to their pastures, because they have to go to work tomorrow too.

On a morning that was a blue-sky gift from the travel gods, I boarded a ship for the medieval city of Thun, 14 miles northwest of Interlaken, at the far end of its namesake lake. The beamy white boats on the Thunersee, like those on Lake Brienz, make a scheduled circuit of lakeside towns and attractions, regular as Swiss trains—and, short of the fundamental mechanics of the solar system, there's very little more regular than that.

I stopped first at Spiez, a town whose imperfections—I know it must have some—were not immediately apparent to me. Sailboats dotted a blue harbor flanked by rounded hills; ranks of neat houses climbed the slope beyond; snowy Alps rose as the backdrop. And so forth, very Swissly.

Spiez Castle could, I suppose, be a little more harmonious in its blend of towers and turrets—a little more castle-like. It could hardly be placed more conveniently, though: It sits beside the marina, a short walk away for disembarking passengers. The castle's interior interprets successive stages of its 800-year history; the Gothic kitchen, full of well-worn domestic gadgets like butter churns, is more convincing at this than the 17th-century banqueting hall, with its distancing air of formality. Walls are hung with paintings of the nobles who lorded it over the place: scowling, jowled meanies, bejeweled and beribboned fops, and a few dignified gentlemen who looked as if they might actually have deserved to own a castle.

The interior's the draw, too, at Oberhofen Castle, an architecturally eclectic fantasy across the lake. Like Spiez Castle, Oberhofen began as a 12th-century tower; renovations by its various masters have left it looking like a medieval castle-keep wedded to a relatively youthful château. Oberhofen is known for its park and gardens, and on this sunny day they were luminous with flowers.

Inside, I followed my guidebook through a multilevel maze of rooms, from the piously spare 1473 chapel (and an even sparer prison cell) to mirrored salons furnished in the style of one Louis or another. Luxury is the dominant sensibility at Oberhofen: stained glass and chandeliers, ornate furniture and polished paneling, stucco work and marquetry. Among the castle's portrait population is a fanciful but apt painting of an infant, a grave little Von Somebody, and a tiny gilded carriage being pulled by a brace of doves.

On, then, to Thun, by happy chance in the Blümlisalp, the most famous of the lake's ships. A side-wheel steamer built in 1906, she was retired in 1971 and due to be scrapped when public protest saved her; after refurbishing, she returned to service in 1992. Seeing the Blümlisalp glide across the water today, as elegant as the swans that patrol the lakeshore, you have to wonder how anyone could have wanted to junk her. No doubt it had something to do with efficiency.

Wandering inefficiently around Thun, with no thought but to enjoy the sunshine and flowers and river, too lazy to get the map out of my pack and see where I was going, I noticed a path marker—Brahmspromenade—and realized that I had walked into the footsteps of the town's most illustrious tourist.

Johannes Brahms spent three summers near Thun, beginning in 1886, in a house overlooking the Aare. Despite his rotundity, he loved to walk, and he must have strolled—perhaps more moderato than allegro—along this riverside many times, admiring the view of Aare and Alps. Brahms at first wasn't sure that Thun was the right choice for his summer residence, but soon after he arrived, he wrote to a friend: "I am entirely happy that I have come here."

Today, Thun travelers do most of their walking in the old quarter, along the narrow medieval street called the Hauptgasse. Two levels of buildings line the way, the upper set back so the roofs of the lower serve as sidewalks. Enterprises of all sorts invite nosing around, from craft stores and upscale jewelers to grunge-chic boutiques and even an unobtrusive erotik shop. With its sidewalk cafés, flower boxes, and waving banners, the Hauptgasse is a colorful Old World scene—quietly upstaged by the sight on the hill above.

When I saw Thun's most famous landmark, my first thought was: "Now this is a castle." As a museum it can't compare with Oberhofen, but Thun Castle fits the image of a don't-tread-on-me fortress admirably well. As I stood in the courtyard looking up at the turrets rising over a hundred feet above, I could imagine the occupants pouring boiling oil on any poor neighbor who showed up uninvited to borrow a cup of newts' eyes or bat wool. Whether oil ever flew out the castle windows I don't know, but apparently one of a pair of feuding royal brothers once did—not of his own free will, and with fatal results. He must have landed just about where I was standing.

Climbing the tower stairs, I thought I was hearing recorded music from somewhere above; as I entered the great Knights' Hall, I saw that it was a flesh-and-blood violin-piano duo, practicing for a concert that evening. The violinist (who, I learned later, was the much praised young artist Julian Rachlin) was playing the Brahms "Scherzo," and playing it magnificently. In the wood-beamed room the sound was rich and spacious. I sat alone in the back row, feeling for a time equal to any castle lord commanding a private performance.

It was one of those bright moments travel sometimes brings—like cresting a hill and coming on a new and wondrous landscape; like a warm inn at the end of a wintry walk—that fills us with the sudden delight of an unexpected gift. This was a good time, then, and a good spot to rest from my wandering for a while, here with the music of the Romantic, peripatetic master swirling around me. Thun Castle was stocked with all manner of historic artifacts, with ferocious broadswords and iconic tapestries and Roman coins, and I would get up, later, to see them. But for now, I would sit and listen to this sunny music in this old hall and think of other things: of Alpine scenes and of the long line of travelers who've found them so irresistible; of all the ways there are to say it's so beautiful...and of where I would walk tomorrow.

Although he conquered no Alpine peaks, Mel White set a personal record for chocolate consumption.