Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen was first recorded in 1240 as "in claro fonte" — "clear spring". In the 13th century the valley belonged to the barons of Wädenswil, who sold the Sefinen valley to Interlaken Monastery in 1240. Around 1300 the Lord of Turn began to settle Walser-speaking people in the upper valley, and by 1346 the Walser villages of Lauterbrunnen, Gimmelwald, Mürren and others had their own village governments and some independence from the monastery.

Mining shaped the early modern valley. Mines were dug at Trachsellauenen in the upper valley from the late 16th century, and in 1715 an iron smelter was built at Zweilütschinen to process the ore; the Trachsellauenen silver mine is now a heritage site of national significance. In 1779 Goethe stayed in the parish house near the Staubbach Falls and wrote his "Song of the Spirits over the Waters".

Fame brought visitors. A road from Interlaken was completed in 1834 and the Bernese Oberland railway arrived in 1890; cable cars reached Mürren in 1891 and Wengen in 1893, and the Jungfrau railway opened in 1912. In 1911 a young J. R. R. Tolkien walked from Interlaken into the valley, which later served as the model for his drawings of Rivendell. Isenfluh merged into the municipality in 1973, and in 2024 the municipality set up a working group on over-tourism, which discussed a fee for day visitors arriving by car.

The valley's name and its coat of arms both come from water: the arms show three wavy stripes for the famous waterfalls around the village. The Staubbach, the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland, inspired Goethe in 1779, and the steep walls and falls of the valley shaped the imagination of Goethe and Tolkien.

The cliffs have given Lauterbrunnen a different reputation in recent decades as a centre of wingsuit BASE jumping, which draws jumpers from around the world despite the sport's high fatality rate. Mountain culture of an older kind continues above: the Lauberhorn races in Wengen each January are among the most attended winter sports events in the world, and Wengen, where British tourists started ski clubs in the early 20th century, has had an Anglican church since at least 1903.

The Schilthorn above Mürren entered film history when its revolving summit restaurant, Piz Gloria, became Blofeld's hideout in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with Bond escaping on skis down to Mürren. The villages of Wengen, Mürren and Gimmelwald have stayed car-free, and Gimmelwald and the Kleine Scheidegg area are part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

The municipality of Lauterbrunnen had about 2,300 residents at the end of 2020; the village itself is smaller than Wengen but larger than the other villages of the municipality, which stretches over 165 square kilometres from the valley floor to the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. About a fifth of residents are foreign nationals, and German is the first language of most. The population shrank by almost 9 per cent between 2000 and 2010.

Tourism is the main business, from hotels and restaurants to the railways and cable cars. Over-tourism has become a local issue, and the municipality has looked at ways of managing the crowds of day visitors without deterring those who stay overnight or arrive by public transport.

Life is divided between the valley floor and the terraces. Wengen and Mürren cannot be reached by road, so their links with the valley run by train and cable car. The year follows two seasons, skiing and summer walking, with quieter weeks between them.

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

Älplermagronen, the Alpine herdsmen's macaroni, was made with what herdsmen had at hand in their alpine cottages: macaroni, potatoes, onions, small pieces of bacon and melted cheese, traditionally served with apple sauce rather than vegetables or salad. Rösti, the fried potato cake that began as a breakfast dish of farmers in the canton of Bern, is usually eaten as a main dish with cheese, onions and cold meat or eggs.

Zopf, the braided bread with a golden crust (tresse in French, treccia in Italian), is traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings. Meiringen in the Haslital, east of Interlaken, claims to be the place where meringue was first created.