ELISE HIRSIG

The most beautiful place - For Elise Hirsig, an adventurous journey to the Hasliberg began at the start of the 20th century. With enough money from her beloved and very loving father - her mother had died at an early age - she set off for Interlaken. There she took a rowing boat across the lake to Brienz. There was still no railroad on the right side of the lake and the road was left in its natural state.

In Brienz, Elise was impressed by the fact that the poets Goethe, Byron and Uhland had already been guests there and had discovered this beautiful place for themselves. From Brienz, the journey continued by coach to Meiringen and from there she was finally carried up the Hasliberg by donkey. Once at the top, where the Gletscherblick stands today, she was so overwhelmed by the mountain panorama that she decided to build a "guesthouse" in this "most beautiful place in the world".

The Pension Gletscherblick was built in their adopted home in 1906. And it all started with a bang: as the house had to be built on rock, explosives had to be procured to clear the stony building site. To get the dynamite, Elise Hirsig hiked for hours to Lungern, as the Haslibergstrasse was not completed until 1907. On the even more arduous return journey, she then carried the explosives she had procured there in a rucksack to the Gletscherblick building site with an air of non-explosive composure.