In the Alpine town of Lauterbrunnen, in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland

 "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern" (Song of the Spirits over the Waters) is a 1779 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It may be best known in the English-speaking world through a musical setting of 1820–21 by Franz Schubert, as a song part for men's voices and low strings.

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(in Switzerland) The Bernese Oberland ("Bernese Highlands") is the highest and southernmost part of the Swiss canton of Bern, and one of the canton's five administrative regions. It constitutes the Alpine region of the canton and the northern side of the Bernese Alps, including many of its highest peaks. The region essentially coincides with the upper basin of the Aare, which includes Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, the two large lakes of the region. The many side valleys of the Bernese Oberland include a large number of Alpine villages, many of them being tourist resorts and connected by mountain railways to Spiez and Interlaken. The Lötschberg, a major north-south axis through the Alps, links the region with both the capital of the canton, Bern, and its southern neighbor, the canton of Valais.

+ Featured here is the Alpine town of Lauterbrunnen, in the Bernese Oberland, with chalet-style houses and small village churches. Its natural surroundings include towering rock faces, mountain peaks, flowery meadows, and some of the tallest free-flowing waterfalls in Europe. Lauterbrunnen is found in one of the most impressive trough valleys in the Alps (between the imposing rock faces and mountain peaks). With its thundering waterfalls, secluded valleys, colorful alpine meadows, and charming mountain inns, the Lauterbrunnen Valley is one of the largest nature conservation areas in Switzerland.

+ The very name "Lauter Brunnen" ("many fountains" or or more accurately, “Loud Springs”) reflects the magnificence of this landscape. There are 72 waterfalls in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the most famous being the Staubbach Falls (pictured here, at sunrise). Plunging some 300 meters from an overhanging rock face, they are one of the highest free-falling waterfalls in Europe. (In 1779, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the valley, and was inspired by the roaring waters to write his well-known poem ‘Spirit song over the waters," while he stayed at the parish house near the Staubbach Fall waterfall.) (An impressive aspect of this waterfall is that the water is free-falling off the cliffs, sending clouds of mists into the air; on a windy day, the drifting mist is almost lost in the wind before it reaches the rocks below.

+ The valley town of Lauterbrunnen serves as the launching point for some of the most popular excursion destinations in the Jungfrau region. A rack railway links Lauterbrunnen with the sunny terrace of Wengen on the eastern flank of the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the Kleinen Scheidegg, the station where you change trains for the onward journey to the Jungfraujoch ("maiden saddle"), connecting two major peaks of the Bernese Alps: the Jungfrau and the Mönch.