Gimmelwald, before you book
Gimmelwald has no road at all, not even to its edge, and Switzerland Tourism describes it as reachable only by cable car. You come up on the Schilthornbahn from Stechelberg, where cars stay in the valley station car park, or down from Mürren on the same line. Either way the hamlet appears suddenly on its shelf above the valley, a cluster of wooden chalets and old barns with grazing cattle and a protected townscape.
The hamlet is small enough that “sleeping here” comes down to two real choices. By the cable car station, which is also the centre of the village, with a playground and the shortest walk from wherever you arrive; or the quiet upper lanes above it, five minutes further on foot and away from the lift traffic. If nothing is free in either, Mürren sits one cable car section above at 1638 metres, with a far wider choice of hotels.
Gimmelwald genuinely has no large hotel. The village’s own list names eight addresses: a pension with a trust-based Honesty Shop, a seasonal hostel with a restaurant and bar, a guesthouse, a bed and breakfast and a couple of whole-house chalets, one of them the oldest building in the hamlet. Hotel Mittaghorn, at the top of the village, has been closed since it was bought for renovation in December 2020, and its owners still give no date for reopening.
The cable car runs all year but stops for maintenance from 19 to 30 October 2026 and again from 26 April to 7 May 2027, so a trip built around it should dodge those weeks. The Mountain Hostel’s restaurant and bar keep to the same rhythm as the mountain, open daily only from 15 May to 18 October. Getting here starts with the train to Lauterbrunnen, then the PostBus to Stechelberg for the cable car up, or the mountain train and cable car down from Mürren.
