The Poetry of Switzerland's Lauterbrunnen Valley

Switzerland’s Lauterbrunnen Valley is breathtaking in its majesty: a narrow glacial ravine crowded with waterfalls and enclosed by sheer cliff faces that rise more than 1,500 feet on either side, with hamlets and farming villages — both at the base of the valley and roosted high in the mountains above — lining its miles-long corridor. Few places on earth have the power to evoke sublimity in such a profound and inspiring way.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe hiked here in 1779, receiving poetic inspiration from its many splendors — as did William Wordsworth, some 11 years later. Lord Byron describes in a journal entry from 1816 having “entered upon a range of scenes beyond all description, or previous conception.” And Alfred Tennyson, in a letter to a friend in 1856, called Lauterbrunnen one of the “stateliest bits of landskip” he ever saw. “Let it suffice,” he added, “that I was so satisfied with the size of crags that … I laughed by myself.”

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From “Where Exhaustion Can Lead to Awe” by Stephen Hiltner for the New York Times. Photo by Stephen Hiltner 

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