Balmer's Herberge

All told, Balmer's Herberge is probably not a bad place to stay for location and access to things as you are right near the action centre of Switzerland. However we were a little disappointed with how noisy it is and how much room they allocate for communal spaces when the bedrooms and bathrooms are so uncomfortably tiny.

The Location

The hostel is located on the main road through Grindewald, so you won't miss it, particularly with it's colourful and traditional design. In fact it was this that first drew us to the hostel when initially we had thought to stay elsewhere. It is friendly; the staff are helpful; and the bottom level with its tourist information, internet, book exchanges, and comfortable lounges promises much. You are also very close to other facilities in town -- trains, buses, shopping centres, and food and restaurant options.

Rooms and Bathrooms

There is a slightly inconvenient lockout of the rooms for a few hours a day, but the worst thing about the rooms is probably the number of people pushed into them and the lack of space provided. There are rooms with six, eight, or ten beds. There is nowhere to keep your things inside the room. There are lockers outside somewhere that are completely inconvenient to access, plus all the girls in our room have their washing strung up all over the place.

Our room is right by the shower and because it has an incredibly high speed water release that literally knocks you off your feet, it also makes a lot of noise. People are heading off for hiking at all times of the morning, really early, so we were awake from about 5 a.m. with the shower going on and off. Every time someone goes in or out of a door, it beeps with the security code, plus the doors are really kind of heavy to close. The walls are also very thin so you can hear noise from just about everyone else anyway. Suffice to say this is not a place you will sleep well.

The bathrooms are adequate in number but the shower gives you no room to change and they have this awful sort of steel cage to stand on that collects water and gets sopping wet.

Common Spaces

The common spaces are really quite good, which is kind of a sad thing. You feel like if they cut back on these and gave more space to the rooms you would have a more comfortable overnight sleep. There is a kitchen and dining room in one section, apart from the rooms. It is probably one of the worst kitchens we've seen in Switzerland and there are not adequate places to wash and dry up. The tea towels are filthy, so people would not bother to tidy up. And some of the stove tops don't work or take a long time, so we were all lining up to use one or two elements, which means some people waited a long time for their meal.

There is a TV/lounge area near the kitchen that is quite popular and in the morning you have your breakfast near here. This is probably one of the worst breakfasts we've had, too -- the staff do not seem too interested in it either. There are also communal spaces below the dorm rooms, which are largely unused. Most are enormous rooms with just one or two places to sit, and seem a waste of space. There are also large game rooms that aren't well used either.

Summary

We are quite surprised it is one of Europe's top ten hostels and that it is located in Switzerland -- a place you expect things to be really perfect and very clean. Plus they have been operating since 1907 so you wonder if they have become a little too assured of their success and have let standards slip. They could easily improve a few things and it would be a much better place to stay.

— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
December 2010