Written: Dec 06, 2023
Updated: Dec 06, 2023
Read time: 13 min

Thunersee and St. Beatus Caves, Switzerland (2023)

D and I spent most of our second day in the Interlaken region holed up in our hostel due to the storms. It was a weekday, so it worked out for D since he was working remotely for most of our trip through Europe. I also brought my laptop with me so I could do some photo editing and writing on the trip. It would've been such a waste letting a full day go by without seeing anything, so we took a break from our respective projects in the afternoon, hopped on a ferry across Lake Thun (or Thunersee in German), and visited the St. Beatus Caves, known locally as St. Beatus-Höhlen am Thunersee.

Fun fact: J.R.R. Tolkien hiked through the Swiss Alps as a 19-year-old in 1911 and the whole Interlaken region, including Lauterbrunnen Valley and the St. Beatus Caves on Lake Thun. These became the inspiration for iconic places in his Middle Earth like Rivendell and the Misty Mountains.

Kidding around with goats

It was pouring most of the day, but around early afternoon, the rain finally eased up and some sun broke through the clouds (though briefly). I was tired of looking at a computer screen, and reading my books, so why not get a lil' serotonin boost with some goat watching?

The house next to our hostel kept a trip of goats in a small field that the hostel's dining room window overlooked. They would come out during breakfast time to mow the grass, and were herded back into their sheds after sunset.

A kid chews on a leaf of grass — I just want to boop the snoot.

Two kids staring at me — Boop all the snoots.

They were so cute! I watched the kids headbutt, chase, and kick at each other, while the parents lazily grazed, unfazed by their antics. I tried befriending them by holding out some flowers I picked in the field to no avail. They were quite skittish and wary of me the whole time.

A goat side-eyes me through the wires in the fence — Look at those horns -- didn't want to mess with those.

A goat with its mouth ajar, mid-chew — Me in every photo with D's family; they always decide to take photos when I'm eating!

Goats grazing in the field, mountains the the background — All the goats fit into that tiny shed in the back!

After futile attempts to gain the goats' trust, I decided to walk around and take photos of the hostel.

The main entrance to the hostel — I loved the wooden doorways and the stained glass windows.

The front yard of the hostel — You could easily mistake this for a ~boutique~ hotel

Multicolored tulips in the garden — These beautiful tulips were planted in the garden bed in the front yard.

It felt good to finally get some vitamin D and soak in the landscape. Mist rose and fell between the defiles of the mountainsides in a rhythm, as if the mountains were breathing. It's easy to see how the "Misty Mountains" in Tolkien's books got their name.

A murder of crows flying into the mountain mist — Call the police, it's a murder (of crows)!

The houses of Interlaken sitting in a green meadow — Everything just looked like it was in HDR with the sun

Thunersee (Lake Thun)

Interlaken is sandwiched between two lakes: Thunersee and Brienzersee ("der See" is German for "lake"). We only had a few hours of daylight, so the most efficient thing to do was the hop on a ferry ride for some easy sightseeing. If D didn't have to work, I would've loved to spend the whole day hopping on and off the ferry: visiting the castle in nearby Spiez, exploring the town of Thun at the other end of the lake, or taking the cable cars up to the Niederhorn ("lower peak", if you want a literal translation).

I was able to woo D into leaving the hostel, even as the clouds moved back in and a light drizzle began by telling him that we could walk in Tolkien's footsteps by visiting the St. Beatus Caves. He wasn't entirely convinced, but intrigued just enough.

The ferry docks were a short 15-min walk from the hostel, and we were able to catch the second-to-last ferry leaving Interlaken for the day.

D sitting at a table on the ferry — D and I grabbed a table and ordered some hot tea and cocoa while it drizzled outside.

It was pretty chilly outside and all the benches were wet on the deck, so we mostly sat inside, enjoying our drinks and the central heating.

Thunersee on an overcast day — The town of Thun lies across the lake.

Wisps of cloud and mist lifting off the mountainside — A dusting of fresh snow from the storm in the upper elevations.

A view of the lakeshore and green lake water — The color of the lake was so beautiful even without the sunlight.

Small farms saddled in the hillsides — Cute villages dotted the lake shore.

Mountains towering over the lakeside villages — Storm clouds always add so much drama to the scenery.

Deep, teal blue water with the mountains as backdrop — Another photo to highlight the changing emerald, aqua, and royal blue colors of the lake.

A small park on surface of the lake — This dreamy little park looked like it was floating on the surface of the lake.

St. Beatus Caves from a distance — The St. Beatus Waterfall in the distance, cascading into Thunersee.

The ferry ride was only about 20 minutes, but it doesn't drop you off right outside the caves. The docks are an additional 20min hike (or shorter depending on how fast you go, I think we did it in 12-15min) from the actual entrance of the caves. There's a nondescript trail that takes you from the lake shore up to the road. Across the road, we saw a large, wooden sign with "St. Beatus-Höhlen" written on it pointing to a steep and narrow path to the left and followed it all the way until we hit the monastery.

The ferry station — This is where you get dropped off by the ferry.

The trail climbs pretty quickly, and both of us were sweating almost immediately. The path was thankfully paved, so it never got too muddy or slippery. You also get some pretty nice views as you get up higher.

The road above the lake wraps around the cliffs — I was tempted to rent a car after seeing the views you'd get on the highway

Looking back at Interlaken from the trail — Looking back towards Interlaken on the trail.

Small white daises in the foreground, with the lake as backdrop — There were so many pretty little daisies that lined the whole trail!

D posing with the scenery — You can see how cold we were with how many layers D was wearing.

The St. Beatus-Höhlen are pretty spectacular to see in person and it really feels like you've stepped into a fairytale. The Augustine monastery, now turned into a restaurant, overlooks the multiple streams of St. Beatus Waterfall, which flows directly out of the caves and from under the monastery.

St. Beatus monastery overlooking the waterfalls — The waterfalls you see have traveled several miles through the cave system, from the snowpack of the Niederhorn, to the mouths of the caves here!

Spray from the waterfalls and green moss — This is the kind of place where fairies or nymphs would play in the water.

The legend of the St. Beatus Caves begins with Beatus of Lungern, a monk remembered as the first apostle to Switzerland in the sixth century AD. Legend has it that he chose the caves to spend his pious hermitage; however, he discovered that the caves were already inhabited by a fire-breathing dragon (perhaps inspiration for a young Tolkien to create Smaug?). He held his cross up to the beast, invoking the Holy Trinity, and the dragon was expelled from the cave, tumbling down the cliffs into Thunersee and causing the lake to erupt and boil. You can actually visit St. Beatus' burial site at the cave entrance.

Tickets for the caves cost 19 CHF (~22 USD) per person. It's not the cheapest attraction to visit, but it is very, very cool. Of the 14kms that have been explored, only one is open to the public. There are so many chambers and gorges, streams and waterfalls, and impressive stalactites and stalagmites to explore.

One of the streams running through — It's not often you get to see such a large underground stream (or an underground stream at all).

Small stalagmites forming — The ceilings can drop pretty low at times.

A large stalagmite almost touches the ceiling — This big stalagmite is so close to merging with the ceiling!

A fast-flowing stream running through the cave — The flow rates of the streams are surprisingly fast.

A chamber with multiple stalagmites — Stalagmites are typically formed from calcium carbonate, but may consist of lava, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter, and amberat (crystallized urine of pack rats, gross).

A reflection of a chamber with stalagmites — Pretty cool that they come in so many colors, in spite of forming from the same compound.

Weird ripples form along the cave ceiling, reflected by a large pond — These mineral ripples reminded me of the folding in lava flows.

As we walked deeper into the cave, we started to climb higher as well, and soon we began to hear the thundering of a waterfall. How big and how much water could there be, so deep in the underbelly of these mountains?

Eventually you come upon one of the main inflows into what becomes the St. Beatus waterfall. The pounding from the water has formed deep gorges within the caves, with drops of over 10 feet and large overhangs where the limestone underneath has been whittled away. Water is gushing, spraying, pouring from all around you. Fuzzy and tender green moss and algae are growing where spotlights of sun have broken through and breathe life into the chilly caverns, which are often 10-20 degrees colder than the outside. The trail winds up towards a metal staircase, where you can walk over a small footbridge and look down at the crisscrossing jets of water below. It's fantastic and cool and seeing this was absolutely worth the money.

The waterfall and the gorge cut into the caverns — The shape of the falls perfectly lines up with the curves of the gorge.

A jet of water gushes out from a crevice — Warning: splash zone!

Apparently during early spring and heavy winters, the caves actually flood and about 3/4 of it is closed to visitors for safety. Pretty wild! Also pretty wild? Realizing that we're literally 1km deep into a mountain that rises tens of thousands of feet above the lake, a mountain which we could see across the lake from Interlaken.

Carpets of moss line the rocks, a curtain of water falling behind — This whole area would be submerged in a high water/snow year.

When we had finally stepped back out of the caves, the sun had also started poking out from the clouds! Amazing how the light instantly changes the landscape.

Looking down at the winding path down to the road — This is the official path to the entrance of the caves, different from where we came up.

Daffodils overlooking Thunersee — The yellow daffodils added a lovely splash of warmth to the scene

The hills around Lake Thun in the sun — The light on the green hills was unbelievable

D and I took the snaking path from the front of the monastery entrance down to the bus station across the street. There were lots of small, stone bridges that crossed over the waterfall, where you could look over the handrails and watch the gushing water drop over the small cliffs below. It worked out that we took a completely different path from the ferry dock to the caves since we were able to get views of the lake that weren't visible from this main path.

Looking up at the monastery from below — You can finally see from this angle where the water flows out from under the monastery

The large, granite cliffs rising above the monastery — The Niederhorn massif is so large, I could only fit the bottom 10% of its granite walls into this photo

A wooden footbridge crosses over a series of falls cascading down the mountain — Rivendell IRL

We stopped by the Cave Museum on the way down; our tickets covered the cost of it, so why not check it out? The museum only takes about 5-15min to walk through, depending on how much you linger. We found the diagrams of the cave system really interesting, since you could see how deep the cave system goes into the mountain. There was also a little tank with some axolotls and blind cave fish too!

A window looks out over the lake — There was this fun water feature outside of the cave museum that made you feel like you were under the waterfall

When we finally made it to the bus stop, we discovered that the next bus wouldn't be coming for another 45 minutes, so we decided to walk along the path following the highway to soak in more lake views (and so I could take more photos).

Alps behind Interlaken — The Alps finally decided to show themselves!

Reflection of the clouds and the Alps on the lake — The reflection of the sky on the lake was so stunning

Fallen trees at the edge of the lake shore — The COLORS! Reminded me a lot of Lake Tahoe; however, Thunersee is only half as deep at "only" 716ft in depth.

A zoomed out view of Interlaken — The light and reflection kept changing, so yes I took way too many pics of this vantage point (like >50, editing and choosing one photo was a pain).

A ribbon of clouds rest just below the mountain peaks — The contrast between these massive, snowy peaks and lush green hillsides was stunning.

A ray of sun turns the mountain and hillsides golden — Many minutes were spent marveling at this golden kiss of sunlight on the clouds and mountainsides.

Half panorama of Lake Thun and Interlaken — I was almost tempted to walk the whole 90+ minutes back to Interlaken because of these views, but it was getting late.

Full panorama of Lake Thun — This one is a full panorama, from Interlaken to the peak of Niesen (I think)

The bus ride back to Interlaken took about 20 minutes from the Beatus-Höhlen stop. Both of us were pretty hungry by then, and while we still had some spinach, cheese, and cup ramen waiting for us in the hostel fridge, we also missed having a fresher and more nutritious meal. One of the best-rated restaurants we found in the area was actually a Korean restaurant called Aare Korean BBQ Restaurant. Such a pleasant surprise -- both of us had been craving good Asian food.

It started raining again as we began walking, and luckily the restaurant was only ten minutes away from the Interlaken West station where the bus dropped us off. We also finally had a chance to walk along the lovely Aare river. I could not contain my excitement when we finally sat down and started flipping through the menu. They had vegetable mandu, steamed dumplings, leek pajeon, and even tofu and vegetable dolsot bibimbap! I desperately wanted to order the jjigae, but sadly none of them were vegetarian. (I'm writing this two days out from wisdom teeth surgery and salivating at the thought of this because all I've had for the past few days is boxed soup and mashed potatoes).

We ordered some pajeon to share, a tofu dolsot bibimbap for me, and a seolleongtang for D. I think we could've ordered more, but the prices kept us in check. My bibimbap was 27 CHF, or 31 USD! I'm not actually mad about it though because I'm sure importing and acquiring ingredients is really difficult and I was just grateful this place existed. It felt so good to be out of the rain, drying off, drinking tea, and eating a hot meal cooked by someone else. The owners were lovely, and the restaurant was very cute. Large windows lined each of the walls, letting in plenty of natural light, and there was a life-sized, fake cherry blossom tree in the middle of the dining space whose branches extended over the tables, drooping with light pink and plastic, yet convincing, blossoms. It felt like we were dining in a garden.

I was too hungry and preoccupied with eating to take any pictures of the food. And while everything was missing a hint of umami and salt, I was so happy and satisfied at the end. If we weren't on a budget, I would've wanted to come every day we spent in Interlaken.

After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and D had to do some work still. I was excited to see that the clouds hadn't moved completely back in yet, so I ran out to take some photos.

Layers of blue and green mountains — There were so many layers of blue mountains for miles and miles.

Alpenglow on the farm fields and surrounding mountains — A lot of the best views were on private property, so I had to just zoom in and shoot from the road.

A small church across the field with the sun setting and hte mountains on the horizon — The little church with its steeple against the setting sun was straight out of a fairytale.

It was soooo tempting to walk into the fields to get a better vantage point, but that would've been trespassing! A friendly reminder that we should respect other peoples' property and/or signage protecting sensitive areas, even if the temptation to get the most ~Instagram-worthy~ photo is strong 😌 (I unfortunately see this too often while hiking!).

There were some cute kitties on the way back to the hostel. Someone came out of the house that they were sitting in front of (maybe the owner?) and she looked at me funny like I was about to steal her cats. Not that she's entirely wrong to be suspicious, I was definitely thinking about it.

A tuxedo cat and orange cat sit on the ground outside a house — I love you, please be friends with me

The last rays of sunlight on the granite faces — I was late to the falling light, so the fields are darker than I'd like them to be. But I'm working on reminding myself how beautiful the spontaneity of a scene is on its own, rather than getting too caught up in my idea of "the perfect shot"!

Mountain cowslip — Some delicate mountain cowslip that lined the sidewalks

I got back to the hostel just before it got dark and found D working in the dining room. He worked into the evening while I hung out nearby, reading and drinking tea before we turned in for the night.

If you'd like to follow the rest of our adventures in our 20-day trip through the Rhine River region of Europe, you can find the whole collection of posts in 20 days on the Rhine River (2023).