Preliminary Swiss thoughts

Old Jul 31st, 2007, 06:19 PM
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Preliminary Swiss thoughts

We are planning the 2008 summer vacation – 14 full days in Switzerland, and as always, this forum is a wealth of information. There are so many areas that sound wonderful, but need to prioritize.

It’s going to be the two of us (haven’t decided yet about train vs car) and here are some preliminary thoughts – please help me focus. Out of the 14 days, we’ll probably want to spend 5 days in the OB area, 2 in Zermatt area, 3 in Ticino and another 3…..Lucerne? Engadine? Lake Geneva?

Please rate/comment on the 3 marked with a ‘?’. Four bases is the max we are willing to do in 2 weeks, so please, don’t tempt us.

We are not interested in shopping or strenuous hikes. We enjoy natural beauty, small, quaint villages, good food, leisure strolls/hikes, gondola rides, snow-topped mountains, lakes, boat/ferry rides, photography. Which area do you recommend for us?

If this matters, we’re flying from NYC, but the arrival and departure airports are still TBD. Thanks a lot
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Old Jul 31st, 2007, 06:19 PM
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Ohhh, I forgot to mention - we're going in August. Thanks again
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Old Jul 31st, 2007, 11:45 PM
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Hi xyz99,

It's pretty hard to "rate" these objectively. Each will give you natural beauty, good food, leisure strolls, ferry rides, and each will have quaint villages.

Here are some more considerations --

Luzern & Lake Geneva will be the most over-run by tourists in August; the Engadin less so (or at least less so by English-speaking tourists). After running into a lot of tourists in the BO, this may be too much.

The Engadin may be the most different from the other areas as the architecture is distinctly different. Yet it still has the massive mountains that define the country. The Engadin also has very different dining traditions, and some travelers prefer this type of cuisine from the other areas of Switzerland.

The Lake Geneva area is not surrounded by mountains; they are about 1-2 hours away.

Luzern may be best suited for you if you are flying out of Zurich, as it's only an hour from the airport by direct (0 changes) train.

Perhaps you can find some online images of each place to help you decide. Try at www.webshots.com or at google images.

Good luck!

s
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Old Aug 1st, 2007, 01:22 AM
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My hubby & I spent 3 weeks in Switzerland in June. Eight days in the BO, 2 in Vevey, 2 in Zermatt,3 in Locarno (Ticino), 3 in Pontresina (Engadine), 2 in Zurich.

We used a Swiss Pass for the trains and it was a great way of getting around. We had a wonderful time, but please do yourself a favour and spend the last 3 in the Engadine, we just loved it there. We traveled from Locarno to Tirano by bus then caught the Bernina Express to Pontresina and it was one of the highlights of our trip. There is plenty to see and some nice walks where the only company we had were cows. We stayed in the Hotel Engadinerhof and were the only people there that spoke English, that was fun too!

Click on my name and you can find my trip report - you will have to wade through the first 5 weeks before you come to Switzerland though.
Best wishes for a great holiday.
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Old Aug 1st, 2007, 06:01 PM
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Thank you both for the responses ¡V and it seems both of you favor the Engadine area. That was easy ƒº

So we¡¦ll probably have 5 nights in OB, 2 in Zermatt, 3 in Ticino and 3 in Engadine. This leaves us an extra night to add either to one of the 4 areas above or somewhere else, close to an airport. We need to figure out logistics (fly into and out of airports) and based on that, figure out the order of the 4 areas and start the real planning.

So if the main goals are to minimize backtracking and be able to fly direct from Newark, what would be the best order to do the 4 areas above? Continental flies direct to Zurich, Geneva and Milan. Thanks
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Old Aug 1st, 2007, 11:11 PM
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We flew in and out of Zurich. Arrived Zurich and took the train straight to Brienz in the BO through all that lovely scenery and did a loop as it were. Golden Pass train from Brienz to Vevey then onto Zermatt. From there we went on to Domodossola and the Centovalli Line to Locarno, bus to Tirano in Italy and up to Pontresina then Zurich.
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Old Aug 2nd, 2007, 12:24 AM
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If it works out with your flight back from Zurich I'd recommend you add that night to the Engadine. 3 nights is not much (2 full days only!) if you visit this area for the first time.
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Old Aug 2nd, 2007, 05:34 PM
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Ingo,
Yes, that’s our first trip to Switzerland. Unfortunately, if we fly in and out of Zurich (and as of now, that’s probably what we’ll do) we need the last night there. The flight out is at about 10 am.

The only way to add another day to Engadine would be to take it from the OB – have 4 days in each area. Would that be better?

We never visited the Italy lakes area, so I don’t feel like skipping Ticino. And Zermatt….would love to see it.

Maudie, you covered a lot – how much time did you spend in Switzerland? I found your trip report, but didn’t get to read it. Hopefully this weekend…


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Old Aug 2nd, 2007, 09:27 PM
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From my count, Maudie spent 20 days in Switzerland, which gave her some more time to move around. With 14 days, I would not try to “do” more than 3 places with maybe a 4th place which is very close by, even in tiny Switzerland. I think you just won’t enjoy moving around that much, plus you won’t get to enjoy what each region has to offer. Right now you have 4 major areas which are rather far apart, that’s kind of a lot, IMO.

I would consider dropping Zermatt if your plan is to just go there for part of 2 days and 1 night and look at the mountain. First of all, your days may be foggy and/or rainy (or even snowy), which is very, very possible. You will then have gone a long way to NOT see the mountain. Secondly, Zermatt is a long way from the rest of your itinerary, other than the BO. It’s a very long trip to the Engadine or the Tocino region from Zermatt. A small point is that in August Zermatt will just be chock a block with tourists, many day trippers and I think you really won’t enjoy it that much. It’s crowded at most times of year, but in August even more so. Lovely as Zermatt is, I think you should save it for another trip OR drop one of your other areas and give more time to Zermatt to allow for weather and to do other things in the area. There is a lot of excellent and very easy walking in Zermatt and in the neighboring valley of Saas Fee, for example. And if you like good food, one of the very best restaurants in Switzerland, if not in Europe, is in Saas Fee.

Take a look at rail.ch for an idea of train travel time between these places. Even driving them is not going to be a whole lot faster, esp between say Zermatt and the Engadine. The Glacier Express, mentioned above, is the slowest way to go between the two, although it is scenic. (Of all the scenic trains, IMO the Bernina Express is the most beautiful ride.)

For the return flight, much as I dislike Lucerne, if you returned from the Jungfrau valley for a night in Lucerne (an afternoon or evening would be all I would give to Lucerne, I would NOT use it as a base to “see” the BO), you could easily take a train right to the airport at 6:30 am the next day and be in time for the flight. You could however spend the night in Zurich, a wonderful town as well and have a lovely dinner and stroll as well. Either is an option. You might also look into things like sending your luggage ahead to the airport, see http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/...isegepaeck.htm so you don’t have to lug them in the morning.

One thing on Swandav’s comment on Lake Geneva so as not to give the wrong impression to that gorgeous area: while the area is not in the mountains, the whole lake certainly has stunning views of the snowy Alps. Especially from the towns along the northwest bank from Morges, Lausanne, Vevey, Monteux to Chillon. Even Geneva has some good views. Simply a beautiful panorama of the huge, snowcapped Alps floating above the lake. If you walk in the hillside vineyards above the lake, the whole scene is just magical, IMO. I find it actually more beautiful than the BO, but I like water views best in any event. A ferry ride on a sunny summer afternoon on that lake sitting upstairs in the back of the boat with the Swiss flag waiving in the stern, a cold beer in hand and that glorious Alp view is my idea of perfection…..

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Old Aug 3rd, 2007, 12:18 AM
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Hi xyz99,
Yes we were there for around 20 days as Cicerone mentioned and had more time to move around but I just wanted to give you an idea of what we did.

We loved Zermatt but also had reasonably good weather, if you go pay for a hotel room with a view of the Matterhorn, it was wonderful to sit on our balcony with a drink and enjoy the view, actually it was great at anytime of the day. However it is a long way and if the weather is rotten there isn't a lot to do there.

Do as Cicerone suggested and check out the swiss rail site, I spent many hours using this site to plan our itinerary, it very user friendly. Grab a map and plot out your travel times and see what you think then. I think I would have to agree with Cicerone too, maybe you are just trying to fit too much in. I know how hard it is leaving out places you want to see.

Leave out the Engadine (as much as I hate to say it) and add that time to other areas or leave out Ticino maybe - its a hard call but I think something has got to go but if you are up for it do the lot and plan on going back and spending more time the areas you loved.
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Old Aug 3rd, 2007, 07:05 AM
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I am a huge fan of Lac Leman area outside Geneva, so that would be my pick. I like the towns of Lausanne, Vevey, and Montreux best. You are not *in* the mountains, but you are certainly looking at 'em... in the distance across the lake! It is absolutely stunning scenery.
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Old Aug 4th, 2007, 05:28 AM
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All,
I continue to be amazed by the knowledge and willingness to share it of members of this board.

Cicerone, Maudie, Suze,
I think that I need to drop one stop from my list. I looked at some pictures on the web, wow, Switzerland is fantastic. Hard to say what to skip – and I thought it was a small country, and we could cover more

For now, I think we might drop Zermatt – too out of the way, and too weather dependent. I’m thinking, 5 nights in OB, 4 in Ticino and 4 in Engadine. With the last one in Zurich, for the next morning flight. How does this sound? Are these areas too similar to one another? Are we missing a lot by skipping Zermatt? Is the number of nights in each place ok?

Hopefully, we’ll ‘do’ Zermatt and Lake Geneva next time. Thanks

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Old Aug 4th, 2007, 01:57 PM
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Sounds excellent to me! Go for it!
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Old Aug 4th, 2007, 03:00 PM
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Hi xyz99,
I just saw your reply to my trip report. Thank you.

I would say try to stay in Murren and the Engadine (maybe Guarda). As you know, I stayed in Murren and loved it -- truly "in-your-face" views of the alps there. Also I got as far as Zuoz in the Engadine (will explain the details of that later in my report), but loved that whole area -- and Zuoz itself was quite charming. As Swandav has said, dining experiences are different there, but also the art form on the buildings--sgraffiti--is quite interesting, as well as beautiful.

The next time I go to Switzerland, I will definitely visit Guarda and Scuol.

Luzern is swamped with tourists in the summer. I would limit my time there if I were you. It's also a big city.
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Old Aug 4th, 2007, 06:06 PM
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Hi,
Ditto what ingo said. I think you have a good mix now and enough time in each area to have a wonderful holiday.

Zuoz is very pretty, I have a wonderful photo from there, we also loved Guarda and did a lovely walk from there to Ardez but ran out of time to walk the rest of the way to Scuol.

In Ticino try and do the Olive Path walk, we really enjoyed it and I just loved Gandria - make time for a meal there or at leat a drink and catch the ferry back to Lugano. Try www.ticino.ch for some ideas, menu down the left side.


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Old Aug 5th, 2007, 05:37 AM
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All,
Thanks for all the advice here. I think we’ll drive (we like the flexibility the car offers), even though I read wonderful things about the Swiss train system. And we’ll do this in the Engadine – Ticino – OB order. Hope this is a good order and I’ll come back to ask for details. Thanks again.
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Old Aug 5th, 2007, 02:21 PM
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bookmarking for a future trip!
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Old Aug 5th, 2007, 11:16 PM
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I think cutting out Zermatt is a good idea, albeit hard to do I know. As you can tell from your research, really literally everything in Switzerland is beautiful (even the ugly industrial bits of Zurich have a certain clean orderliness that is nice), so it is hard to make choices, but the good news is that your really can’t go “wrong” with any choice. IMO cutting it down will just make you enjoy the places you have chosen that much more than running around trying to “see” everything, which you really can’t do.

The three places you have chosen are quite different regions in terms of food, culture and geography, esp the Tocino. The architecture of the Engadine is unique as noted above, and it is much less touristed, at least by Americans, so that is a nice change too.

Driving versus train is a tough one. Gas is about US$6 a gallon this summer and parking is hard to find and not cheap. Your hotels will either not have it or will charge for it, you will pay something between US$18-25+ a day in public parking lots and at hotels. There is virtually no on-street parking in Switzerland, and what little street parking exists is hourly at about 2 hours max, so you have to find a parking garage or lot and park there. Trying to find parking can be quite frustrating and not really what a vacation is supposed to be about, IMO, esp on a half-day trip to a little village where you could spend more time than you want looking for the village parking lot. The trains will put you right into the village centre in most cases, or there will be a bus linked to the train to take you to the village centre (in Guarda for example, or its a short, but uphill, walk to the village). Secondly, several of the towns you may be considering staying in or visiting are car-free, like Guarda in the Engadine, and many in the BO (Murren, Wengen, Gimmelwald and essentially Grindelwald where you drive in and park, you don't really drive in the town). So you will be paying to leave the car at the bottom of the mountain and not use it for several days, especially in the Jungfrau valley as you will visit the various villages and mountain areas by train and cable car. If you like ferries, as your post indicates, you will want to spend a half day or so taking the lovely ferry ride on either or both of the lakes at Interlaken, so won’t need a car for that (you can train to towns and this in fact will save you backtracking to collect the car at the end of the day). For the Tocino, you probably will be taking the ferries (esp in Lugano where many of the towns like the very charming Morcote are really only accessible by ferry), and the train to get to areas rather than driving, esp if you want to see the Centovalli above Locarno and if you want to ferry back to Locarno after the train trip which is a pretty typical loop for that trip, or do something like biking down the valley to Locarno. You may end up using the car a lot less than you think. If you are going to Lucerne for a last day, I would defiantly consider dropping the car off there and training to Zurich from there (less than 1 hour) and then training to the airport from Zurich (10 minutes). You don’t want or need a car in either city, save yourself the rental and parking charges (assuming there isn’t a big drop off charge). Finally, I think road signage on both highways and especially leading to towns and in town is poor. There are lots of one-way streets and pedestrian-only areas to further complicate driving. I used to live there and eventually sussed most of it out, but still found it could be very confusing to drive into a new place; I think tourists end up getting lost fairly frequently. You can usually find an English-speaking person to assist, so your not going to drive to Germany or anything.

On the other hand, the car is nice if you want to get a little bit more flexibility in a schedule to drive over to say Kandersteg or Gstaad for the day from Wengen, and to drive the very fun mountain passes. So it’s a toss up. If you drive to St Moritz from Zurich, for example you would take the very interesting Julier Pass (Abluba Pass is also possible, could do one up and the other back), both of which are above the tree line and like a moon scape. The train ride, however, is one of the most beautiful in Switzerland, IMO, esp the part from Chur to St Moritz and in particular the valley between Filisur and Celerina. You won’t do that route in the car. So it’s a hard choice.

Finally, I would note that if you are going to be in the Engadine, it is actually a very easy and pretty trip to Lake Como by car (or by public transport as well, part would be by bus rather than train). I am not encouraging you to skip the Tocino, but Lake Como is quite close to the Engadine, it is just south of it and would actually take you less time than driving to say Locarno (and about the same as Lugano by car), so you don’t necessarily have to go to the Tocino region on this trip. Either would be nice at that time of year. I think having a car in Lake Como is even less necessary than in Switzerland as you really want ferries to get around that very long and thin lake, but driving to and from would be a time saver, esp to get to the BO, which would be faster than the train, and you could take a route to go over some of the passes like the Susten Pass, which would be very scenic.
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Old Aug 6th, 2007, 03:24 AM
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Re Zermatt...I'm not sure I've actually seen any "ugly industrial areas" but given your interests you do not need two nights there IMO.

The village is nice enough but it is in many ways the "typical ski village" and you can easily walk the length of that in an hour. You could stop in to see the church but the obvious "biggie" (since you aren't into hiking) is going up for a view of the peak and the Monte Rosa Massif.

You could do all that in one day and avail yourself of the spectacular train ride up from either Brig or Visp.

BUT, the problem is (as always) the weather at the top...it can be wonderful in the village and the peak view totally obscured.

I'd risk it in ONE long day or one overnight at the most.

Lake Geneva (LeMan)...I'd stay away from Geneva itself and spend somwehere along the lake..perhaps Montreux and if you want another spectacular ride "up" take the rack railways to Rochers de Naye for absolutely stunning views of the lake.
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Old Aug 6th, 2007, 03:32 AM
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my message refers to ugly industrial bits of ZURICH...
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