How I would do this:
If that was too much info and you just want a fixed plan then this is what I would suggest for 10-14 days (for shorter time frames you could use public transport to skip whole sections). This is full on, so add a rest day in as you like.
Day 1: Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen by train. Walk along the valley to the Trummelbachfalls, double back to Lauterrunnen, take the cable car to Grütschalp and then the Mountain Trail hike to Mürren.
Day 2: End of valley hike.
Day 3: Hike over the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald. (Shortcut up or down with train)
Day 4: Hike over the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. (shortcut with bus)
Day 5: Meiringen to Brig via bus and train. Hike along a section of the Obergoms (eg: Gluringen to Fiesch).
Day 6: Cable car up to Eggishorn, admire the glacier and follow the path along to Bettmeralp.
Day 7: Hike from Rideralp to Belalp via the Aletsch forest.
Day 8: Train to Zermatt. Take a gentle hike up to Zmutt.
Day 9: Zermatt. Take the train to Gornergrat and adventure along the ridge.
Day 10: Zermatt. Hike the Edelweissweg.
You could then spend a day or two travelling to Chur and visit the Greisinger museum. Though I would try and avoid the Glacier Express and take local trains myself. Stop off at places like the Rhein gorge to make the most of it.
Misc:
It is far out the way, and nowhere near where Tolkien himself went, but the Greisinger Museum sounds like it is worth checking out. Basically a dedicated/mad Swiss bloke made a museum containing Hobbit-hole near Chur. You can book tours by language on their website. At 50CHF it isn’t cheap (but is still cheaper than Hobbiton in NZ).
The building at the St Beaten caves near Interlaken looks like it fell out of picture of Rivendell but are probably do with Tolkien. The site was a tourist spot then and it isn’t far from Interlaken so maybe he went. Apparently there is a part of it that dates back to the 1500s as a chapel, but as far as I can tell the structure is for the most part very modern and as likely to have been inspired by Tolkien as VV. Still the caves are pretty and there is a myth of a dragon residing in the area too. My post on visiting there.
It is said in his biography that at some point in the trip Tolkien bought of postcard of “Der Berggeist” by Josef Madlener which he kept and wrote on it “origin of Gandalf”. The daughter of the artist says the painting was most likely done 1925-1930.
Tolkien never went anywhere near it, but Appenzell is basically the shire (if a little steeper). A very traditional rural area (women in Appenzell Innerrhoden couldn’t vote on local issues until 1991) that is worth a few days to explore. Yet again see this post of mine.
Some other resources on this topic:
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/10/25/81121-in-tolkiens-real-misty-mountains/
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1120-alpenwild-tour-in-the-footsteps-of-tolkien.php
BBC article – really not written by someone who knows the area. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140523-in-alpine-villages-hobbits-lurk
https://www.lucyfuggle.com/blog/living-and-hiking-the-literary-heritage-of-tolkien
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/travel/down-the-hobbit-hole-in-switzerland.html
The letters:
Letter 306
I am.... delighted that you have made the acquaintance of Switzerland, and of the very part that I once knew best and which had the deepest effect on me. The hobbit's (Bilbo's) journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods, is based on my adventures in 1911: the annus mirabilis of sunshine in which there was virtually no rain between April and the end of October, except on the eve and morning of George V's coronation. (Adfuit Omen!)
Our wanderings mainly on foot in a party of 12 are not now clear in sequence, but leave many vivid pictures as clear as yesterday (that is as clear as an old man's remoter memories become).
We went on foot carrying great packs practically all the way from Interlaken, mainly by mountain paths, to Lauterbrunnen and so to Mürren and eventually to the head of the Lauterbrunnenthal in a wilderness of morains. We slept rough – the men-folk – often in hayloft or cowbyre, since we were walking by map and avoided roads and never booked, and after a meagre breakfast fed ourselves in the open: cooking utensils and quantities of 'spridvin' (as the one uneducated French-speaking member of the party both called and wrote it, for 'methylated spirit').
We must then have gone eastward over the two Scheidegge to Grindelwald, with Eiger and Mönch on our right, and eventually reached Meiringen. I left the view of Jungfrau with deep regret: eternal snow, etched as it seemed against eternal sunshine, and the Silberhorn sharp against dark blue: the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams.
We later crossed the Grimsell Pass down on to the dusty highway, beside the Rhone, on which horse 'diligences' still plied: but not for us. We reached Brig on foot, a mere memory of noise : then a network of trams that screeched on their rails for it seemed at least 20 hrs of the day.
After a night of that we climbed up some thousands of feet to a village at the foot of the Aletsch glacier, and there spent some nights in a châlet inn under a roof and in beds (or rather under them: the bett being a shapeless bag under which you snuggled). I can remember several incidents there! One was going to confession in Latin; others less exemplary were the invention of a method of dealing with your friends the harvestmen spiders, by dropping hot wax from a candle onto their fat bodies (this was not approved of by the servants); also the practice of the beaver-game which had always fascinated me. A wonderful place for the game, plenty of water at that altitude coming down in rills, abundant damming material in loose stones, heather, grass and mud. We soon had a beautiful little 'pond' (containing I guess at least 200 gallons). Then the pangs of hunger smote us, and one of the hobbits of the party (he is still alive) shouted 'lunch' and wrecked the dam with his alpenstock. The water soared down the hill-side, and we then observed that we had dammed a rill that ran down to feed the tanks and butts behind the inn. At that moment an old dame trotted out with a bucket to fetch some water, and was greeted by a mass of foaming water. She dropped the bucket and fled calling on the saints. We lay more doggo than 'men of the moss-hags' for some time, and eventually wound our way round to present ourselves grubby (but we were usually so on that trip) and sweetly innocent at 'lunch'.
One day we went on a long march with guides up the Aletsch glacier – when I came near to perishing. We had guides, but either the effects of the hot summer were beyond their experience, or they did not much care, or we were late in starting. Any way at noon we were strung out in file along a narrow track with a snow-slope on the right going up to the horizon, and on the left a plunge down into a ravine. The summer of that year had melted away much snow, and stones and boulders were exposed that (I suppose) were normally covered. The heat of the day continued the melting and we were alarmed to see many of them starting to roll down the slope at gathering speed: anything from the size of oranges to large footballs, and a few much larger. They were whizzing across our path and plunging into the ravine. 'Hard pounding,' ladies and gentlemen. They started slowly, and then usually held a straight line of descent, but the path was rough and one had also to keep an eye on one's feet. I remember the member of the party just in front of me (an elderly schoolmistress) gave a sudden squeak and jumped forward as a large lump of rock shot between us. About a foot at most before my unmanly knees.
After this we went on into Valais, and my memories are less clear; though I remember our arrival, bedraggled, one evening in Zermatt and the lorgnette stares of the French bourgeoises dames. We climbed with guides up to [a] high hut of the Alpine Club, roped (or I should have fallen into a snow-crevasse), and I remember the dazzling whiteness of the tumbled snow-desert between us and the black horn of the Matterhom some miles away.
I do not suppose all this is very interesting now. But it was a remarkable experience for me at 19, after a poor boy's childhood. I went up to Oxford that autumn.
Letter 232
I always like shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts. Blessed are those who have them or meet them. Though they are commoner, in my experience, than Saki aunts. The professional aunt is a fairly recent development, perhaps; but I was fortunate in having an early example: one of the first women to take a science degree. She is now ninety, but only a few years ago went botanizing in Switzerland.
It was in her company (with a mixed party of about the same size as the company in The Hobbit) that I journeyed on foot with a heavy pack through much of Switzerland, and over many high passes. It was approaching the Aletsch that we were nearly destroyed by boulders loosened in the sun rolling down a snow-slope. An enormous rock in fact passed between me and the next in front. That and the 'thunder-battle' – a bad night in which we lost our way and slept in a cattle-shed – appear in The Hobbit. It is long ago now. ....
