Driving to Grindelwald, and why Wengen and Mürren refuse the car

The drive from Interlaken follows the main road through Zweilütschinen and takes about 40 minutes. It is partly winding and, depending on the weather, can be snow-covered along the way.

Cars are allowed into the village. What runs out is parking, particularly at peak times.

Allow more time than the distance suggests, and know where the car is going before you get there.

Grindelwald Tourismus lists three public car parks: the Parkhaus Eiger+ with 252 spaces, the Parkhaus Sportzentrum with 160, and the Terminal Parking beside the V-cableway station with 1,000. There is a further car park at Grindelwald Grund.

The tourism office would rather you did not drive in at all. It recommends park and ride: P+R Matten, reached from the A8 at the Wilderswil exit, or P+R Wilderswil next to the railway station there.

Head for the Terminal Parking if you are skiing from the V-cableway, and take the park and ride if the car is staying put all week.

Wengen has no road for private cars at all. It is reached from Lauterbrunnen by the Wengernalp Railway cogwheel train, on foot or by bicycle, and the car stays down in Lauterbrunnen: either in the multi-storey directly below the station, or at the car park by the church, which Wengen's own arrival page puts at a walk of ten to fifteen minutes or a half-hourly bus.

Mürren is car-free too, with two ways up from Lauterbrunnen: the cableway to Grütschalp and then a train, about 20 minutes in all, or a bus to Stechelberg and the Schilthornbahn gondola by way of Gimmelwald, about 30 minutes. Drivers taking the second route leave the car at the park beside the Schilthorn cableway's bottom station at Stechelberg.

Lauterbrunnen for Wengen, Stechelberg for Mürren by the Schilthorn route. The car park belongs to the village you are staying in.

The A8 is motorway, so the charge is owed on it. The ordinary road up the valley is not charged, and neither is a route that keeps off green-signed roads for its whole length.

The last leg of a Wengen or Mürren week is a train and the last leg of a Grindelwald one is a valley road, but both of them start on the A8 if you come in past Interlaken, and the A8 is charged. One annual vignette covers it and there is nothing shorter behind it. The official channels are the federal webshop and the staffed customs posts at the border; ours is an independent service that adds a service fee, listed before checkout, and the Swiss vignette price page shows both sides of that.