lucytan

My family (3 adults & 2 children) will be travelling to switzerland in mid sept 2005. We would like to go to lucern, interlaken, lusanne & zurich. can you advise how many days do we stay in each of these places & the sequence of our journey since we intend to take the swiss pass?

thank you
lucytan

swandav2000

Hi lucytan,

We can help you a lot more if you can give us some more information, such as what you like to do (shop, eat, hike, visit museums, sit at cafes, etc), and your entry and exit points (Zurich, Geneva?).

Generally, I can advise you to skip Interlaken and go instead to one of the mountain villages (Wengen, Muerren, or Grindelwald). If you like to hike/walk trails, you can stay there for 4-5 days.

Again, I find Lausanne to be too large of a city for my taste and advise you to stay in one of the smaller towns on the lake (Vevey or Montreux). These are great places for shopping, eating, walking vineyard trails, walking lakeside promenades, ferry rides, and cafe sitting. Usually people find 2-3 days here enough.

Luzern is a great place for exploring a bit of history with its old town, then for walking along the lake, hiking in the mountains, taking ferry rides, shopping, and cafe sitting. Because Luzern is just about an hour from the Zurich airport by direct train, I recommend it for the last day or last few days in Switzerland.

Zurich is a nice city, but because I dislike cities in general, I recommend you spend your time in the country or in Luzern.

Hope to hear more specifics from you.

s

Edward2005

Too many places on your list for only 7 days. If you are flying in and out of Zurich, I would stay in a village in the Oberland such as Murren for 5 nights and then Luzern for the last 2 nights. The Zurich airport is only 1.5 hours by train from Luzern.

If you insist on squeezing in Lausanne, then I would do the first 2 nights in Lausanne, then 3 nights in the Oberland, then the last 2 nights in Luzern.

SoCal100

lucytan,
I see that you are getting good suggestions from the pros up here already.

We are about to leave on our (first) trip in a few days covering pretty much the same places you have mentioned. So, if you like take a look at our itinerary: http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34667480

One addition to that itinerary I have made is to add a day in Lucerne after day 6 in the Bernese Oberland area- to bring the total length to 9 days . We are also getting the 8-day SwissSaver Pass.

You may want to take the GoldenPass Panoramic train between Interlaken and Montreux. so, your best "flow" might be to do Zurich-Lucerne-Interlaken-Lausanne-Zurich
or Zurich-Lausanne-Interlaken-Lucerne-Zurich.

again, we are just about to go on our first trip to Switzerland and cannot claim to be an expert .

Have a good trip!

suze

If you mean Lausanne, that is WAY out of your way from the other locations. Are you flying both in and out of Zurich?

jmw44

Hello. Edward's itinerary sounds good. It is about 2.5 hours from Zurich to Lausanne with no changes. September is sure to be a lovely time to visit Lausanne and the Lavaux vineyard villages along lac Leman. Followed by 3 nights in the Oberland and 2 in Lucerne, if your return flight leaves the Zurich flughafen late enough for you to stay the last night in Lucerne. You can investigate train connections at the SBB.ch website. Three gorgeous locations. J.

suze

Don't get me wrong I love Lausanne, or better yet Montreux or Vevey!

I wondered simply because Lausanne is >1 hour from the Geneva airport. That's why my question if they were flying both in and out of Zurich. Those 4 destinations sound like an awful lot of places for just a one week trip.

As to the original question of how many days in each place... that would have to be only 1 day each, then the next day travel, stay 1 day, the next day travel, etc.

Mimar

I must spring to the defense of Interlaken. Yes, it is touristy. But that's because it's supremely well located to enjoy the best of Switzerland: mountains and lakes. From Interlaken, you can take trains up into the mountains, to the Lauterbrennen valley and the villages of Murren, Wengen, the mountains: Jungfrau, Schlithorn, etc. Also from Interlaken you can take boats around Lake Brienz (stop at the Open Air Museum in Brienz) and Lake Thun. All this from one base.

Note that the Swiss Pass will pay for busses and boats, but it will cover only part of the cost of the private railways up into the mountains.

I too would drop Lausanne from your itinerary. In fact, I'd drop Zurich unless you have to fly in there. Lucerne is on a lake and right next to Mt. Pilatus, so it is another good destination.

7 days aren't very long. And in mid-September tourist facilties may have closed or be running on reduced hours. If there's someplace special you want to see, check it the hours of operation for September.