Interlaken

A rack car up the hill behind the town, steep enough that the carriage inside is a staircase. The top balcony juts over the valley, holding both lakes and the flat between them in one view, and the town's name explains itself. It runs spring to late autumn.

A whole meadow with no building on it opens where the town centre ought to be. In the nineteenth century residents bought it together and tied it against building, so the hotel row faces open grass. Paragliders land on it every few minutes in the afternoon.

A cave cut into the cliff above Lake Thun, with a stream running through the inside. The story has a sixth-century monk driving out the dragon that lived here, and the cliff path below is free to walk. Inside stays cool in midsummer too, so bring a layer.

A small old quarter across the Aare, and one bridge away from the tourist strip the noise drops off. The timber houses and the clock tower around its square took their places in the thirteenth century and have not much moved since.

A fishing hamlet on the southern shore of Lake Brienz where the jetty can no longer simply be walked onto. After one television scene the crowds came and the village began taking a ticket for it; the water there is the deepest colour on the lake.

An Augustinian house founded in 1133 lost its purpose at the Reformation and left only the buildings, now shared between cantonal offices and a church. The courtyard is open during working hours, and clerks cross under the cloister arches.

Mountain trains leave from here and split front from back once they are inside the valley. The two halves go to different places, so the board on the platform decides which carriage you get into. Board wrong and you ride back to the junction to start again.

A sand strip at the eastern tip of Lake Thun, a bicycle ride out of town. The valley wind comes up steadily in the afternoon and keeps windsurf boards on the water, which arrives off the mountains and numbs the feet even in high summer.

The Aare between the two lakes runs slow enough for a rubber boat, and from the Brienz end the town is two hours down. A weir blocks the channel below Unterseen and boats must come out at the steps before it. It is cold even in summer, so life jackets go on.

The village across the lake has lived by cutting wood for generations, and its carving school still takes students. Chisel noise comes out of the workshop windows, and carved cows and bears stand at the doors. The boat over takes more than an hour.

A rack railway laid from Wilderswil in 1893 needs nearly an hour for the slow climb. At the top an alpine garden labels hundreds of mountain plants, and Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau stand in one row opposite. Trains run in summer only.

Opened in 1892, the line still has steam engines pushing coaches uphill. It starts at the lakeside station in Brienz, and nearing the top the lake turns into a turquoise ribbon far below. Soot drifts back, so a window seat leaves clothes smelling of coal.

A waterfall breaking over fourteen steps through the forest across Lake Brienz from the town. From the boat pier a funicular built in 1879 lifts you to an old grand hotel beside it. One stretch of path ducks behind the water, so you watch the fall from inside.

In woods beside Brienz, over a hundred old farmhouses from across Switzerland stand rebuilt, each moved here piece by piece. Roofs and walls change by region, so the walk is a lap of the country, and yards keep local livestock. It closes in winter.

A castle where Lake Thun laps its northern bank, one spire-roofed tower standing in the water. Inside, a museum keeps the rooms of the noble family who lived there, and the garden deserves its own stroll. Thun-bound boats call at the pier by the gate.

The town where Lake Thun drains into the Aare, under a white hilltop castle with a turret at each corner. On the main street a raised pavement runs over the shop roofs, so you walk on two levels. In summer people surf the standing wave by the river sluice.

Beside Meiringen the Aare has cut a gorge through limestone 1.4 kilometres long. A timber walkway pinned to the rock runs above the water, and in places the walls close to almost arm's width. Each end has a station: walk in at one, ride out from the other.

Where Conan Doyle sent Sherlock Holmes over the edge with Moriarty. A wooden funicular from 1899 climbs from Meiringen to a halfway viewpoint, and a white star marks the fictional fight. The old English church in the village keeps a Holmes museum below.

A peak rising in a sharp pyramid south of Lake Thun, with a funicular to the top since 1910. The service stair beside the track has 11,674 steps, recorded as the longest staircase in the world. It stays closed except for a once-a-year stair race.

Ride the gondola up from Kandersteg and walk the forest path for 30 minutes to a mountain lake walled in by cliffs. The water is deep turquoise; summer visitors hire rowing boats out to the middle. In winter it freezes over for ice fishing.

A little lake tucked in the Kander valley woods, so clear and blue you can see sunken tree trunks on the bed. It is a private nature park that charges admission, and a glass-bottomed boat takes you round. The restaurant serves trout from the farm next door.