lovetotravel777

First trip to switzerland and planning three nights before heading to italy. Where should we stay? I hear Bernice oberland is nice as well as zermatt. Flying into zurich and travelling by eurorail. any tips appreciated!

nytraveler

Well - what kind of experience do you want. A small town with lots of hiking? Or a larger town/small city with several options. (For the latter I would suggest Lucerne - pretty town, great lake with boat trips, small villages to be explored and trips up Mt Pilatus or Mt Titlis by cog train or cable car.

Cicerone

Three nights is quite short in Switzerland. What time of year is the trip. Where are you going onto next in Italy. Both of those would be helpful bits of information. The Bernese Oberland is certainly lovely, but I would not go there is say late October or early November when it is bound to be foggy and rainy. For a start for advice with 3 nights, I would pick one place and try to explore that. I personally dislike Lucerne, it’s a city full of tourists, with a very small old town and while you can take some nice ferry rides to look at the mountains in the distance, you aren’t in the countryside there at all. I like to be actually up IN the mountains where you can go out the front door of your hotel and be in the fields with the cows or have a mountain trail to walk.

lovetotravel777

We are going the last week of August in switzerland and then will be heading to venice for the italy portion of our trip. would not mind exploring the smaller towns but would like to stay in a larger town if possible. Appreciate all the advice on this site.

Pleiades

When we were first in Switzerland two years ago, we stayed in Luzern (loved it), Zermatt, Murren and Montreux for one night each.

It was a good 'taste' of Switzerland and encouraged us to go back this year.

We've just returned and - after 4 weeks in Italy - we stayed in Lugano, Luzern, Lauterbrunnen, Murren, Gruyeres, Zermatt and Arosa .. mainly for two nights in each place.

It was a fantastic experience and I will (hopefully soon) post a trip report.

CRAZY4TRAVEL

I echo nytravelers suggestion of Luzerne or even Zurich for that matter as it is only a short hop from there to Luzerne. We happened to get a good deal on a hotel in Zurich and very much enjoyed our stay there.

We explored the area by boat as well as we took the cogwheel train up to the top of Mt Pilatus. I understand what Cicerone is saying but you can't discount the beauty of the region. People flock there for a reason.

At that time, the Eurail pass gave free transportation on the boat and gave us a discount on the trip up to Mt Pilatus.

I guess it depends on what you like to do. If hiking is your thing, than the Bernice Oberland may be a better choice....but it's more time consuming to get to and from. With only 3 nights, I might choose something a little more convenient.

From what I understand, some of the trains in the Oberland are not included on the Eurail pass as they are private lines.

isabel

I would stay in Interlaken. Everyone on this board seems to hate it but it has several things going for it, especially since you said you want to stay in a "larger" town. It's main advantage is easy transportation to a variety of places. I would not bother with Switzerland if I were not going to do at least one day in the mountains (which you will not really see at all if you stay in Zurich or Lucerne). From Interlaken it's a quick trip into the moutains and you can do walks, real hikes, take cog railways, or any combination. My favorite day trip from Interlaken was to take the train to Lauterbrauten, then the furnicular up and then hiked to Murren and Grimmelwald and took the cabel car down to the valley floor and bus/walk back to Lauterbrauten. The hiking part is on a ledge so you are up in the moutains - and see bigger mountains above you, and the valley below you - but the walk itself is rather flat and not at all strenuous. But there are about twenty other options of things you could do in the mountains.

From Interlaken you can also do a day on the lake, take the train one way to Thun (great old town with castle) and the boat back. You could also do a day trip to Bern, one of the most interesting towns in Switzerland. And Interlaken has great train connections down to Italy. The town itself is quite touristy and were it not for it's location I probably wouldn't choose to stay there, but with only three days you would really get a pretty nice taste of Switzerland without spending all your time traveling from town to town and checking into a new hotel each night. Photos of my trip to the area are at www.pbase.com/annforcier if you want to see the areas I'm talking about (I also went to Lucerne and Zurich).

Nonconformist

Those are really beautiful photographs.

CRAZY4TRAVEL

I have to confess that I peeked at your photos as well...beautiful presentation!!

Thank you for sharing them isabel.

lovetotravel777

Great photographs! Thanks so much for the advice. I think we'de like to head into the mountain region of switzerland but trying to find a place that's easily accessible by train since we have such a short time. I'll look into interlaken versus wengen perhaps?