swandav2000

It's not letting me post the second walk. Will try again later.

s

swandav2000

Charmey to Gruyeres (Chemin du Gruyere, or Cheese Trail) 3h

http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/c...ese-trail.html

PalenQ

Switzerland is about the most expensive country in Europe - make sure your 4 weeks don't break the bank - spending part of that time in northern Italy's Alps or at Chamonix in the French Alps could be a bit cheaper and give you much the same scenery and experience at a cheaper overall price perhaps.

Macaroni09

PLEASE HELP!

Michelin map arrived Fri & spent 2 days looking at regions. YAY! So much beauty, but I never had so much trouble making a trip flow logically.

Rough Guide & Michelin Guide are en route, but time is flying by. Must get these plans made! (This is GOOD stress!) Surely we can do this in 4 weeks.

NOT SEQUENCED--this is my challenge!

1) Lake Geneva/Montreux/Chillon ****

2)(maybe) Gruyères/Fribourg/ Bern

3) Berner Oberland/Wengen/Junfrau area *****

4) Lucerne area?

5) Upper & Lower Engadine *****

6) Ticino Lugano/Guarda ***

home to Houston, USA

(just saw on Air France that you can fly out of Lugano.)

Love the great comments by Swandav and kja, my inspiration!

Would love some train trips to connect areas, & some are suggesting to take local trains & skip the tourist trains. Except it looks like the leg Geneva-> Interlaken area is very crowded, and bus portion Lugano->Pontresina (or reverse) could be overbooked in August.

Will skip Zurich. Looking for best way to make the trip flow and best place to depart for Houston.

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP!!

Also loved the youtube of the postal bus from my post on using the Swiss Pass. How cool!

kja

I think your possible routing probably makes sense, except that Guarda is in the Lower Engadine, not the Ticino, and I would think you would want to visit the Lower Engadine before the Upper Engadine (so you can take the train from Pontresina or thereabouts to Tirano and then the bus to Lugano).

My recommendation would be to take regular trains whenever possible, but agree that you probably want to reserve the bus from Tirana to Lugano in advance. Check Swiss rail website for specifics for all the routes OTHER THAN the special tourist ones and play around with your routing options.
http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html

Whether you can visit all these places in 4 weeks really depends on what you want to see and experience. I think it will be challenging, particularly because you'll be there in August (right?) when you will have to compete with crowds in a number of places. I think most people will see your plan as very ambitious -- perhaps overly so.

I was able to cram in a LOT -- but that's easier for a solo traveler in shoulder season who wasn't looking for quality time with others, doesn't each lunch, and was willing to return home in a state of utter exhaustion. ;-) And although my overall routing was crazy (timed with an eye to keeping as much of my trip within shoulder season -- which differs in various parts of the country), I was also willing to change hotels every night or so, which let me keep moving forward rather than backtracking, BUT that was something I could only do as I did because I knew, from a lot of experience, that I would almost always spend 1/2 or less TOTAL time for each change of location -- counting all the time required for checking in and out, packing and unpacking, and getting to / from transportation. Most people can't manage a change of location in that time frame, and that changes the calculus of when to stay in one location for day trips rather than moving on....

The best advice I can give you about timing is to plot your options on a calendar: Identify the things you most want to see or do in each location, check their opening/closing times on the internet (and, for hiking, check sunrise/sunset hours), and mark them on a calendar. Then add in your transportation and time on either side (for getting to/from your lodging, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.).

Good luck!

swandav2000

Hi again,

wow, I'm so jealous -- both you & kja didn't have any problems posting a long post. Must have been my timing.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say the Geneva - Interlaken leg is very crowded. There are a ton of routes to take between those cities, and I do hope you will actually be going from Montreux, not Geneva. And even then, there are a ton of routes. If you simply input "From Montreux" and "To Interlaken," it will route you via Lausanne & Bern or even via Martigny, Brig, & Spiez.

To get the Golden Pass route, you need to manually input "via Gstaad." But if you go via Gruyeres, then, yes, you'll be on the Golden Pass route (until Montbovon). If you go via Fribourg, you'll go along the route by Palezieux, which is also stunning.

If you decide to take the Golden Pass route, it might be useful to make reservations because, yes, it can get very, very crowded in August (I have had to stand for 20 minutes or so when travelling around Gstaad in August). You may also want to get the VIP seats at the very front & very end of the train, with unobstructed views. For the VIP seats, reservations are mandatory, and they sell out quickly. VIP seats are also first class.

For the other routes, you shouldn't have to make reservations, and I doubt they would be truly crowded.

Have fun as you plan!

s

kja

@ swandav -- perhaps you know that many of us have had problems posting on Fodor's starting last September? There are a few known problems, although not many ALWAYS cause failure. For example, sometimes we can post url links without difficulty; sometimes we have to remove the "http://" from the front of link. You many (or may not!) have a problem in a thread with a url link if you use a question mark ANYWHERE after it. Also, don't use the minus sign when meaning a hyphen. And sometimes it's oddities of punctuation. If you can't preview your post, copy and paste more and more of it until you can't preview it, and then re-word until you can preview. Good luck!

swandav2000

Yes, I do remember that, kja, and I remember that folks (including me) could post shorter posts. So that's what I did this time.

But the site hasn't given me any problems since then, so I was surprised to find them now.

I did get the links posted, so I don't think that was the problem. I do think it was the length.

s

kja

@ swandav -- interesting! I don't remember anyone identifying LENGTH as a problematic factor.... Could well be!

janisj

Just FYI -- it is nothing to do with the length, and probably nothing to do with links as such. There have been a couple of VERY long threads on the Help Forum about this on-going problem. It has been happening since at least last September.

It is apparently a combination of links w/ odd symbols or punctuation elsewhere in the text - or a combination of letters that make the software reject it.

The tech staff haven't addressed the issue much -- but Fodorite Andrew has identified several of the triggers. If your post contains any of the 'offending' symbols/letter combos there is nothing you can do except re-type it with changes and hopefully the problem text will be edited out.

It is very frustrating.

swandav2000

If the problems had *nothing* to do with the length, I am curious why my posts posted, when the only thing I changed was the length of the post.

s

Melnq8

We like the Bellevue in Wengen

http://www.bellevue-wengen.ch/en/home.html

Not exactly cheap, but that's just the way it is in Switzerland

janisj

>>If the problems had *nothing* to do with the length, I am curious why my posts posted, when the only thing I changed was the length of the post.<<

If you changed the length . . . then you changed something else too since some of the text was deleted. The problem text was probably in the part you cut out.

Yes -- there is a length limit - but in years of posting on Fodors I've only hit it once and that was a very <B>VERY</B> long trip report

swandav2000

janisj, honestly, the only thing I changed was the length.

When I saw it wasn't going to post, I quickly copied the text and pasted it onto a Word document (something I learned to do years ago -- difficulties with posting is nothing new). Then I copied the first paragraph and pasted it onto a new post, and it posted. Then I copied the second paragraph and pasted it onto a new post, and it wouldn't post, so I copied half of the second paragraph and pasted it, and it posted. Then I copied the second half of the paragraph, and it posted. Finally I copied the last url, and it posted.

It's the same information, only broken into separate postings.

Perhaps the only thing that didn't post were the "enter" returns between the paragraphs. If that might have made a difference, that could be the problem.

s

janisj

But you are talking mere paragraphs so it couldn't be the length,

What I tried to explain (but not clearly enough -- maybe read over the really thread on the Help board) . . . The link/text/letter combo/symbol/whatever doesn't necessarily have to be adjacent to each other.

For instance Andrew found one case where a specific url plus a question mark several sentences later was the trigger. That is why it is almost impossible for us mere mortals to figure it out.

So what probably happened -- in splitting your post up you separated two bits that were in conflict.

swandav2000

Oh, that could be it!

janisj

Or not

A real PITA . . .

Macaroni09

Hello kja,

Good point to see Unter before Ober-Engadin.

Looking at hikes near Wengen & Lauterbrunnen now, because I was curious why you moved from Wengen to stay 3 nights in Lauterbrunnen. Google maps helped, are outings just more efficient starting from Lauterbrunnen?

Thinking Gandria/Guarda--very different!

Macaroni09

kja, Also enjoying the planning posts you sent. I see why you chose some of your faves!

kja

@ swandav – As janisj notes, a character or characters, in an early part of a post, can lead to a failure if a later part of a post includes some “dooming” character or characters, and it isn’t always clear what the triggers are. I wholeheartely agree that Andrew is to be commended for his efforts toward identifying the triggers for failure, but I must admit that I don’t know why janisj ignores the rest of us who have identified and reported on specific problems and solutions. For example, SelfPropelledTripod let us know that intentionally starting a line (as opposed to automatic wrapping) with the <b>un</b>capitalized word “nice” will cause a thread to fail, and I’ve reported problems involving the use of a minus sign rather than a hyphen….

@ Macaroni09 – I stayed in both Wengen (1 night) and Lauterbrunnen (3 nights) for 2 reasons: (a) As you guessed, one consideration was efficiency: My itinerary was so tightly planned that the extra ½ hour each way (time to wait for the train, take it, and walk to my hotel) would likely have made some of my plans impossible. I really did plan with that much attention to detail! (b) The other consideration was cost: I didn’t feel that I could affort 4 nights in Wengen. I eventually found a place that was a bit of a splurge, but manageable, and so booked it for just one night. Honestly, though, the views from that hotel were not that good. If I were to do it again, I hope I’d choose to pay enough to ensure a good view.

Those planning threads included some AWESOME recommendations and comments, didn’t they? I remain indebted to many Fodorites! And yes, while both are wonderful, Gandria and Guarda are different. ;-)