A room at the inn
The rooms at the Faulhorn Hotel have changed little since the hotel first opened its doors 170 years ago, although the prices have gone up.
The hotel is open until the end of October and, if new leaseholders can be found, will open again next June.
When it first opened its doors in 1830, it was only the second time an inn had been built on top of a mountain in the Alps. The first was a guesthouse on the Rigi above Lake Lucerne about 15 years earlier.
The original Rigi inn has long since disappeared, and others have come and gone or been completely rebuilt, leaving only the Faulhorn as a living witness to the earliest days of tourism.
Commanding views
The Faulhorn was chosen for its commanding views of the giant peaks of the Bernese Oberland – from the Wetterhorn at the northeastern edge of the range to the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
Like on the Rigi, 19th century visitors made the pilgrimage to the Faulhorn to enjoy spectacular sunrises. The bell once used to wake guests sits on a windowsill in the hotel dining room, which has been lovingly restored but is unfortunately no longer open to the public.
While day visitors are catered for in a restaurant housed in a building added to the hotel after the Second World War, overnight guests are put up in the original 19th century rooms.
No plumbing
There is no plumbing in any of the narrow wooden rooms, but plenty of 19th century detail.
There are high but short beds which are surprisingly more comfortable than they look, antique tables and chairs, and enamel bowls and jugs filled with water. The water is runoff from the hotel’s very own glacier, pumped up under hydrostatic pressure.
Rooms begin at SFr69 per person including breakfast.
Visitors who have the misfortune – or good fortune (depending on your point of view) – to be in the hotel during an electrical storm are almost assured that the building will be hit by lightening, perched as it as on the top of the mountain.
The building is secured with lightening conductors but it is not uncommon for a bolt to knock out the hotel’s generator.
swissinfo, Dale Bechtel
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