Blausee and Oeschinensee: two turquoise lakes in a day

Two lakes sit a few kilometres apart in the Kander valley of the Bernese Oberland, both on every visitor's list, both the same improbable blue-green, and they could not be more different to visit. We live in Switzerland and have done the pair as a day trip from Zürich more times than I can count.

1. Blausee, the gentle one

A small lake in a forest, so clear you can see the bottom from the bank. It is loved by locals as much as by tourists, so go early: the later you arrive, the further you park from the gate. We always walk the loop around the shore, stopping every few metres for another angle, and we always take the boat out – a red rowing boat that goes out across water you can see straight through. We have been in spring, when everything is green, and in autumn, when the trees turn; in the warm months alpacas graze in the fields just around the corner. It is a stroll. Nothing about it is hard, and it has been lovely every time.

2. Oeschinensee, the one that asks something

Up the valley at Kandersteg a gondola climbs to the mountain station, and from there the lake is a short walk. Oeschinensee sits at 1,578 metres in a ring of cliffs under the Blüemlisalp, fed by glacier streams, and it looks unreal from every angle. We usually hike higher up the slope for the wider view, the whole lake laid out below. Once we swam in it. The water was freezing, we ate our picnic on the bank still shaking, and the walk back up to the station was real work – by the top we wanted to go straight back down and get cold again.

One you glide across without a ripple. The other you throw yourself into and gasp. Both in a single day, both looking exactly like the photographs. That is rarer than it sounds.