Please help me in planning my honeymoon trip

My flight reaches Zurich at 7 am on June 5 and I depart at 10 am on June 12, giving me almost 1 whole week for my honeymoon. I am trying to plan this trip out, but haven't been able to find any companies that offer honeymoon packages to Switzerland. I really want it to be a hassle free,romantic and memorable vacation.
Any suggestions on how should I got about planning the trip and cities/places to visit

Thanks.

You'll get the most helpful suggestions if you can give us some ideas about what you want...
1. What's your budget? How much are you willing to spend per night? Do you want a simple but nice hotel or someplace with "all the trimmings"--on-site restaurant, maybe even a spa? If your budget is limited, don't forget that some of the deluxe ski resort places can be surprisingly affordable off season with nice specials, especially if you are booking for several days. You could get 4, maybe even 5 star luxury at a 3 star budget if you shop around.
2. Urban or rural? IOW, would you rather be based in a city or town or off in a small village?
3. Stay put in one place with a few day trips or travel around? Personally, with only a week, I'd recommend sticking to no more than two overnight destinations.
4. Lakeside or mountain? (although it's pretty easy to get both in Switzerland)
5. Any language/culture preferences? French, German, Italian, Romansch?

Well since you say you booked flights then obviously you have made the first decision - to go to Switzerland. Now go to a bookstore and either spend a couple of hours looking at Switzerland guide books, or just pick a good general one like Fodors or Frommers. Read it for a couple of nights and you should get a feel for which towns, areas, etc you want to see. You could also do this on the internet - Frommers.com has almost their entire guidebooks on line, and you are already on Fodors, go to the destinations section.

Once you know where you want to go in Switzerland you can ask all sorts of questions here and get lots of info. Booking hotels and transportation is really very easy and need not take a lot of time, but if you are afraid to do it yourself for some reason, then just go to any travel agent. At least you'll know where in Switzerland you want to go. But be warned, it will cost a lot more to have a travel agent book the hotels and trains for you than if you did it yourself.

If you want a really ucomplicated week I would suggest just spend the whole time in Interlaken and do day trips. From there you have the resort lake towns, easy access into the mountains, and are within day trip distance of Bern and Lucerne. I personally have not yet been to Switzerland but am currently planning a trip for this July. I plan to move around a few times but that requires booking more hotels and you said you wanted hassel free which staying in one place would be.

No offense to isabel, and she admits she hasn't been there yet, but I can't think of a much poorer choice to settle for a full week that IN Interlaken.

But I too will wait for some of those questions to be answered before even attempting to make suggestions that might be meaningful.

Patrick, you are not saying Interlaken is no good, are you? I have 3 nights there... not only there of course!

Your request was "how shall I go about planning a trip." You've been advised on some approaches, but the first decision you have to make is whether to plan it as an independent traveler or as part of a tour. If you already have air reservations and/or tickets, you have deprived yourself of some possible planned tours. There are lots of tours that are really nice for a honeymoon, but they aren't called "honeymoon tours." If you've missed those, my guess is you will have a difficult time finding a tour that doesn't include airfare, and you certainly will need a travel agent to do it.

Planning the trip yourself isn't hard, especially to Switzerland, where everything, including the language, is easy because they all speak English. So just decide, as others suggested, whether to stay in one spot and take little side trips, or to move from place to place (but not very many places).

Assuming you think it makes more sense to stay in one place, I'd suggest you consider Lucerne as your base of operations. Interlaken also would be nice at that time of year, but all of Switzerland will have some pretty cool nights and brisk days.

Having said that, I would add that Engelberg is also a great place to settle and take side trips. There are so many nice spots in Switzerland, you can't have a bad time. So get a travel book and start studying!! Good luck.

www.myswitzerland.com

I have no personal experience using this website but see it advertised often in various travel magazines.

Also individual towns often have their own tourist bureau websites with addresses like:

www.montreux.ch
www.vevey.ch

Patrick - why do you think Interlaken would be a poor choice? I had originally planned to spend 3 of my 7 nights there and have upped it to 4 and am now conisdering making it 5 - to avoid having to move around. It looks like it's less than an hour by train from a lot of places. Is it that it's too touristy? I'd really like to know since all my research seems to point to it as a good central place and I'm getting ready to book my hotels?

Interlaken is overcrowded and, in my opinion, boring. Try Spiez, just west of Interlaken on the south side of Thunersee. It is a major rail station, so you can get anywhere from there. You can take the lake steamer, too.

I have spent numerous summers in the Swiss Alps. First time we opted to stay down in Interlaken, thinking that was the place to be. However, each day we'd hop on the train and go up to Grindelwald, Murren, and so forth.

The past few years we've gone straight from Zurich Airport to Grindelwald, where we stay for at least a week before moving on. From this area you have easy access to: Jungfraujoch, Schilthorn, Kleine Scheideg, Manlichen, First, Murren, Wengen, etc. Plenty to keep you busy for a week, and what a wonderful honeymoon you'd have, waking up each morning looking at the majestic Eiger!

Nothing against Interlaken. It's a beautiful city with a lake. But IMHO your time would be better spent up in the mountains, one of the reasons so many people go to Switzerland.

Happy travels!

I agree there are nearby locations which are more interesting for some folks, but all of this talk about Interlaken is totally useless until we hear from the original poster as to what she is most interested in.

I think BTilke's advice was the best without being unnecessarily judgemental.

Isabel -

Just thought I'd put in my two cents regarding Interlaken. We stayed there for three nights once, thinking like you, that it would be a good base. We ended up regretting that decision because everything we wanted to see was ABOVE Interlaken, and we spent more time than necessary on trains and in train stations.

If you're planning to use Interlaken as a base to see other areas such as Luzern, Bern and the lake towns, it will probably be a good base for you. If however, your main interest lies in the Jungfrau, the Schilthorn and the Alps in general, you'd do better to stay higher, such as in Lauterbrunnen or Wengen.

Interlaken is very touristy, but then so is Grindelwald, Wengen and Murren during the high season. It's more of a city and doesn't have the Swiss village alpine feel that some folks look for.

Interlaken may be right for you. You might also want to consider spending half of your time in Interlaken and half in Lauterbrunnen or Wengen. That way you can use Interlaken as a base for the lake towns, etc, and use another place as a base for alpine activites. Although you'll have to move once, you may find that you'll save more time in the end.

Whatever you decide, have fun!

Isabel and FainaAgain, I think others have already answered the question you asked of me.
Interlaken may be OK as a rail base for getting around, but when I go to Switzerland I guess I want more character. As others have said, Grindelwald and others are touristy too, but that doesn't bother me. It's just that I find Interlaken to be just what I suppose it is -- a big tourist crossroads -- that is "near" the mountains but not in them.

Depending on where all you want to travel to, I'd still opt for a place in the mountains for a couple days at least, otherwise I'd use Lucerne as a "base".

If I were looking for one base in Germany, I suppose Frankfurt could be the logical choice because it has the most and easiest travel connections from it. But yet it is my LEAST favorite city in Germany -- kind of the same idea as choosing Interlaken for its ease of transportation.