Belvedere Grindelwald Hotel

A superb hotel especially if you take the deluxe Eiger rooms which look out on to the North face of the Eiger. The rooms are spacious and clean, with crisp linen and enough drawer and wardrobe space. The food is excellent, with good quality produce presented well. Evening meals are usually five courses, and enough to satisfy an appetite gained from the wonderful walks in the area.
The staff is predominantly foreign (to Switzerland) but many are pretty much full-timers, so in an industry that is renowned for its itinerant workforce, that must say something for the owners.
Having spent eleven nights there last year, I had to come back. It is the first holiday for many many years where I have come home totally relaxed.
The journey from Heathrow wasn’t the best. We flew Club with Swiss, which code-shares with BA, so those who paid the upgrade to BA Club, about £40 more than Swiss, gained nothing apart from use of the BA lounge rather than the Servisair one for the extra money. The internal journey was uneventful, as you would expect on the Swiss railways, and the bag-forwarding made the trip hassle-free. The final leg from Interlaken to Grindelwald, for the first time, is breathtaking, with the river racing by your side and the mountains becoming more and more impressive with each corner turned.
It is recommended a Bernese Oberland six-day travel ticket is bought, allowing unlimited use of the trains, buses and cable cars in the Grindelwald/Interlaken/Lauterbrunnen area. Take a train a few stops towards Kleine Scheiddig, then walk up or down to the next stop, or walk from KS to Wengen (it’s easier than Wengen to KS because of the slope) then hop on a train. Catch the bus to Grosse Scheiddig and walk back, looking out for the marmots in the field, especially in spring. Take in the oxygenated air, and pause to look at the meadow flowers. Sit on the hotel veranda, or on your balcony with a pre-dinner cocktail watching the snow melt on the Eiger causing small avalanches over rock outcrops, which then cascade into other snow runs, until there is no more snow left. Listen to the cow bells gently tinkling in the distance, or ringing continually-changing peals as you walk past them on the well-marked meadow walks, suitable for all ages and inclinations. Gently ascend up the mountain in a little cable car, watching the locals below cutting the two-foot high meadow grass. Bliss.