Merligen on Lake Thun:

The famous Way of St. James is in several European countries and culminates in Santiago de Compostela on the Galician west coast of Spain. Merligen and Interlaken are also a stop on this well travelled spiritual route. If you like, you could include a little walking on the pilgrimage route as part of your stay.

From Interlaken over West-Weissenau, Neuhaus and Beatus caves onto Merligen.

Here the pilgrimage route opens into the romantic upper part of Lake Thun, shrouded in legends as well as being an historically, geologically and botanically interesting area. Pearls along the way are the abundance of birds in the protected area of Neuhaus-Weissenau, the stalactite caves in the Beatus Grotto and the beautiful lookout point of Widmannplatz.

This walk is 15.5 kilometres long and takes approximately four hours and 10 min., the route is made nearly entirely of continuous natural tracks and runs through a varied, picturesque landscape.

From Merligen there are two possibilities for the continuation of the pilgrimage:

Variant A: The way over Spiez towards Amsoldingen.

You go directly from the hotel Beatus to Spiez by boat and from there over Einigen to Amsoldingen. The distance is 14 kilometres.

Variant B: The way over Thun towards Amsoldingen

Here you go along the right bank of Lake Thun over Gunten, Oberhofen and Hilterfingen up to Thun. From Thun the way leads over Scherzlingen and Gwatt towards Amsoldingen.

The distance is 19 kilometres.