The first thing about Lauterbrunnen is the walls. The valley floor is flat and green, a little under a kilometre wide, and on both sides the limestone rises almost vertically for several hundred metres, as if a giant had cut the mountain with a spoon. That is what a glacier does, and this one did it thoroughly. Water falls off the cliffs in dozens of places, which gives the valley its name, meaning loud fountains, and there are said to be some seventy-two waterfalls within its length.
The best known is the Staubbach, which drops nearly three hundred metres from a hanging ledge and turns to mist before it lands. Goethe watched it in 1779 and wrote a poem about it. Inside the mountain, a short ride up the valley, the Trümmelbach falls are glacial meltwater thundering through a series of rock chambers, reached by a lift and walkways, and a good wet-weather alternative. Tolkien walked through here as a young man in 1911, and the valley is often cited as a model for Rivendell, which you will understand the moment you look up.
Riding here is all about arrival. The road from Interlaken passes through Wilderswil and then runs up the valley floor, quite flat and easy, past chalets with window boxes and meadows full of cattle. At the head of the valley, the road ends, and the cable cars and trains rise to Mürren and Wengen, two car-free villages on the terraces above, and onward to the Jungfraujoch. So this is a place to park the bike, walk and look up. Parking in the village can fill on summer days, and the car parks are paid, so arrive early.
The village has about two and a half thousand residents and a handful of cafés, bakeries and a supermarket, but fuel is not reliably on hand, so use Interlaken, eleven kilometres back, or Thun on the way. Rain is common, and cloud can wrap the cliffs for days, though when it clears the effect is spectacular. Base jumpers leap from the cliffs in season, and you may see their parachutes opening against the rock. In the evening, with the light turning gold and cowbells ringing, the valley feels completely out of time, and I have never met a rider who did not stay longer than planned.