Wengen

Geschichte

Wengen is a mountain village in the Bernese Oberland of central Switzerland. Located in the canton of Bern at an elevation of 1274m above sea level, it is part of the Jungfrauregion and has approximately 1,300 year-round residents, which swells to 5,000 during summer and to 10,000 in the winter. Wengen hosts the classic Lauberhorn ski races of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in January.HistoryWengen was first mentioned in official documents in 1268, and the origin of the name is unknown.Primarily an alpine farming community, the village began to be visited by tourists in the early 19th century, when Felix Mendelssohn, followed in the 1817 publication of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour and Byron's Manfred, in which the scenery of the area is described. This became the advent of the modern tourism industry for the village.Guesthouses and hotels began to be built in the mid-19th century, with the opening of the Launerhaus in 1859, with accommodation for 30 guests, and in 1880 the Pension Wengen was available to 100 guests. The building and opening of the Wengernalpbahn in the 1890s made the village more accessible to tourists who previously had to walk up the steep slopes to the alpine village, opening the area for an expansion of tourism and the beginning of the ski industry.