For a drink that doesn't involve a basement full of twenty-year-olds comparing bungee jump footage, the hotel bars along the Hoheweg offer the alternative. The bar at the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel is the most formal and expensive option, but it is also genuinely beautiful: high ceilings, leather armchairs, and the full Belle Époque treatment. Drinks prices reflect the setting.
Several of the mid-range hotels along the same stretch run more accessible bars open to non-guests, typically with terrace seating facing the mountain view. These draw a mix of Swiss regulars, longer-stay tourists, and travellers who have graduated from the Ost station scene. The Hoheweg bars tend to keep more conservative hours than the backpacker venues — most close around midnight, later on weekends — but they offer a markedly calmer version of an Interlaken evening.