Grindelwald

Grindelwald was first recorded in 1146 as Grindelwalt. A wooden church stood there by the mid-12th century, followed by a St Mary's church in 1180; the present church dates from 1793. In 1348–49 the villagers rose against Interlaken Monastery, and when Bern adopted the Reformation in 1528 it spread the new faith in the valley against the wishes of its people.

Tourism began in the late 18th century, when foreigners discovered the valley, and grew with the road in 1872 and the railway from Interlaken in 1890. Grindelwald was a cradle of mountaineering: the Wetterhorn, Eiger, Schreckhorn, Finsteraarhorn and Gross Fiescherhorn were all climbed in the 19th century, the ascent of the Wetterhorn marking the beginning of the golden age of alpinism. In 1888 it became the first resort in the Bernese Oberland to attract winter visitors too, with sleigh rides, curling, skating and then skiing; there were 10 hotels in 1889 and 33 by 1914.

The rack railway reached Kleine Scheidegg in 1893 and was extended to the Jungfraujoch in 1912, and lifts multiplied, among them the Wetterhorn Elevator, one of the first modern aerial tramways. In 1938 the Eiger north face, the "last problem" of the Alps, was finally climbed. New gondolas to the Männlichen, in 2019, and the Eiger Express, in 2020, now connect the valley directly to the ski slopes and the Jungfrau railway.

Grindelwald's identity is bound up with the mountains above it. The Eiger north face, nicknamed the Mordwand, has drawn climbers since the 1930s, and at least 64 climbers have died on it since 1935. The village remains the usual starting point for ascents of the Eiger and the Wetterhorn, and the highest peaks of the valley belong to the Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site.

Winter sport has produced its own inventions. The Velogemel, a single-track steerable sledge built like a wooden bicycle with runners instead of wheels, comes from Grindelwald, and from the 1930s until 1995 the village ran a "Funi", a cable-hauled sledge that pulled skiers up the practice slope. Hikers, gliders and paragliders take over in summer, and the village hosts the Eiger Ultra Trail mountain race.

The village was also studied as a laboratory of mass tourism: from 1979 to 1984 the University of Bern examined its effects there within UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere programme. Most residents belong to the Swiss Reformed Church, and the small Heimatmuseum beside the church tells the history of the valley.

Grindelwald had about 3,800 residents at the end of 2020. About a fifth are foreign nationals, German is the first language of most people, and Portuguese is the second most common; in 2000 almost half the residents had been born in the village. The population changed little between 2000 and 2010.

Almost the entire economy is based on tourism, from hotels and restaurants to the railways and cable cars that run up the slopes. Much of the municipality is high mountain land: almost a quarter is too rocky for vegetation and more than a fifth is covered by glaciers.

The year turns on two seasons, a winter of skiing from December to April and a summer of hiking, with quieter weeks in between when some lifts close. Day-trippers heading for the Jungfraujoch pass through the Terminal in large numbers. The retreat of the glaciers is visible from the village: the Lower Grindelwald Glacier, which still reached into the gorge below the Eiger around 2000, was only 6.2 kilometres long in 2015.

Grindelwald's restaurants serve the food of the Swiss mountains. Fondue, usually several hard cheeses such as Gruyère and Vacherin melted with white wine and eaten hot with bread, and raclette, melted cheese with potatoes, are the convivial dishes associated with mountain culture and winter sports, more popular in cold weather than as everyday food.

Älplermagronen, the Alpine herdsmen's macaroni, is the frugal all-in-one dish of the alpine cottages: macaroni, potatoes, onions, small pieces of bacon and melted cheese, traditionally served with apple sauce instead of vegetables or salad. Rösti, the fried potato cake that began as a breakfast of Bernese farmers, is often eaten with cheese, onions and cold meat or eggs.

Meiringen, over the Grosse Scheidegg pass, claims to be the place where meringue was first created. Zopf, the braided bread with a golden crust, is traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings. Over the winter, the same cheese dishes are served to skiers in the restaurants of the village.