xyz99

Our 2 weeks trip to Switzerland (in exactly 2 weeks) is planned and booked – thanks for all the help. Here is our plan, please take a look and see if we’re missing anything that you consider a ‘do not miss’.

We are a couple in our early 40s, looking for relaxation, easy hikes, good food, amazing scenery and photo opportunities. So here it goes:

1) Arriving in Zurich early in the morning (overnight flight from Newark) – we’ll rent a car and drive to Celerina, where we’ll stay 4 nights at Chesa Rosatsch.

2) I know that the 2nd half of the gondola to Piz Corvatsch is closed, is it worth going only for the 1st half? We have a long list of potential trips in the area, so depending on weather and mood we will pick from: Diavolezza cable car, Piz Nair gondola, visit Guarda with a hike to Ardez, funicular up to Muottas Muragl, visit Pontresina. I realize that all of this might be too much for our 3 days in the area, so if we need to prioritize, how should we do it?

3) Drive to Lugano – stop and explore Sils on the way, and probably have lunch there. Do we have time for the horse carriage trip I read so much about?

4) Spend 3 nights (2 full days) in Lugano (hotel Dante). Visit Gandria, take funicular to Monte San Salvadore and Monte San Bre and take a cruise on the lake.

5) Drop car in Lugano and take train to Wengen (Hotel Park Beausite) where we’ll spend 6 night – no real plan there, just enjoy the mountains, hike around, get to Schilthorn and Jungfraujoch (weather permitted), take a day trip to Thun, hike the Lauterbrunnen valley, etc.

6) Train to Zurich, where we’ll spend our last night at St.Josef (room 414, thanks Ira).

We will probably get the Half Fare card when we arrive. Anything else that we should be aware of? Any restaurant recommendation? Thanks – getting very excited about this trip

kleeblatt

An excellent itinerary. You've got a bit of everything.

1. Print out time schedules from the sbb.ch website so you know which trains to choose from.

2. If the weather isn't the greatest during your Engadin stay, I'd do the walk from Guarda to Ardez. I haven't done the other two you've mentioned, so I'm looking forward to your trip report!

3. I've stayed at Hotel Dante and really liked it. The views aren't inspiring, but the hotel is very clean, the staff incredibly nice, the location is well situated and the breakfast is heavenly.

4. Aug. 1 is the Switzerland's National Day so find out about any celebrations that are going on in the area you're at.

5. Speaking of events, do find out if there are any festivals in any of the areas you're visiting. The folklore festivals can really be amazing and highly memorable.

Enjoy your stay!

Cathinjoetown

You might be interested in the Villa Favorita although as the attached from the NY Times says, most of the art is now in Madrid. It's right on the lake and at one time the regular transport boat stopped at its dock:

The much-married and much-divorced -- and the very rich -- Baron von Thyssen-Bornemisza was a headline-making legend in his day. He was also one of the world's greatest art collectors, his holdings rivaled only by Queen Elizabeth II. The bulk of his collection was sold to launch the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. In a 17th-century mansion, Villa Favorita has been greatly reduced in scope but what art remains is worth a visit. Paintings are by such figures as Lucien Freud, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Giorgio de Chirico, and Andrew Wyeth. Even if you don't like art, the gardens are worth a visit, planted with both regional and exotic flora.

LLindaC

Sounds great! I've been to all the above places. Do enjoy the hike from the cable car on Mt S Salvadore..we stopped at a tiny village for lunch and it so romantic. Take the cable car from Wengen to Mannlichen and hhike to Kleine Scheidegg. Glorious easy hike...have lunch there, it's very festive. If you're up to it, hike further to the train station for the Jung..

kleeblatt

Here's some websites for hiking in your chosen areas:

http://www.lugano-tourism.ch/en/148/default.aspx

bob_brown

I just returned from Lauterbrunnen. It looks like your schedule is a good one.

I am curious about the return site of the rental car. Why not drop it in Interlaken? Avis and Hertz have agencies there for sure. I returned an Avis car just this past Monday in Interlaken.

You can easily travel to Wengen by train, which you will have to do anyhow because driving to Wengen is not really possible.

Two years ago some guy in a big Mercedes was told by his GPS that he could drive to Wengen. So he tried it. The locals had a lot of fun with the dumb American in the big car who got stuck in the ditch up on the hill and then got into a heated debate with the local authorities after they cited him for blocking a farm road. The farmer could not bring his cows in because the Mercedes with its wheels in the ditch were blocking the path to the barn.

Don't try driving to Mürren either. It is much easier to take the cable lift.

LLindaC

ROTF BOB!!!!

xyz99

Schuler, great advice, thanks – and yes, I will have a trip report when we come back. August 1st we’ll be in Lugano, so hopefully there will be some lake celebration (fireworks?) to enjoy. Great link for Lugano hikes, although the site seems to have some problem – the headings are in English, but all the excursion description is in either German or Italian (the last language used) – can’t get to the English version, but I’ll try some more.

Cath, we’ll try to stop at the Villa Favorita, sounds like a great spot to relax.

LindaC, enjoyed your pictures when planning Switzerland, hope mine will turn at least half that beautiful.

Bob, I don’t know why we’re not returning the car in Interlaken (we’re renting from Avis). Didn't think of it, need to look into this – how is the drive, scenery wise? Had a good laugh about the guy trying to drive to Wengen. We know is a car free town, and the only way to get there is the gondola/lift/funicular (no idea what the difference is between all these). Actually, the car free feature was a great selling point when trying to decide where to stay in the area. Poor guy….but cannot help but laugh.

TuckH

> stop and explore Sils on the way, and probably have lunch there. <

Being in Celerina, you're not far from Sils. I'd substitute the horse carriage ride up to the Hotel Fex for the funicular up to Muottas Muragl. We hiked from the Sils lift to the Fex Valley and took the carriage back down to town.

Pontresina is not worth a "visit".

You intend to go up every lift in that stretch of the Engadin (Piz Corvatsch, Piz Nair, Muottas Muragl) seeing basically the same scenery each time. I'd choose just one (Piz Nair). An interesting day trip to consider is to go over the Julierpass to Savognin and take the lify there. Entirely different scenery.

Oh my, have you forgotten to include Soglio and a hike from there? If you get an early start on your drive to Lugano, you can (and should) spend most of the day there. It's a two hour drive Soglio to Lugano.

LLindaC

a lunch in the gardens behind the Hotel Palazzo Salis in Soglio! Heavenly! Gotta agree, I thought Soglio was one of the most beautiful places on earth, honestly.I'd do that instead of Sils...

bob_brown

The Avis agency in Interlaken is the Waldegg Garage. It is not far from the Interlaken WEST train station.

After we returned the car, the young man kindly took us and our going home luggage to the train.

(It is a long story as to why I returned in Interlaken rather than at the Zürich airport. Suffice it to say that returning in Zürich involved an extra day car rental AND, according to Auto Europe, a different contract and price because I rented in Munich. Bottom line was $$. We planned to purchase half fare cards, so the low rail fare factored into the decision. To be honest with you, I never really understood the whole rationale. I just took my free double upgrade that put me into a B class Mercedes and went on my way to Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken. through southern Bavaria.)

I have not driven from Lugano to Interlaken, but there is a tunnel under the mountains. An autostrada leads to Italy.

When you return, stay on the freeway north until you reach the exit for the town of Wassen and take the route over the Sustern Pass to Inertkirchen. From there you drive to Meiringen and on the Interlaken West to return your car.

The Sustern Pass is one of three spectacular passes that can be done as a loop from the Interlaken - Meiringen area. The other two are the Furka and the Grimsel Passes.

So from the scenery aspect, you get a good one. If one big pass is not enough, you could exit the Freeway near Andermatt and drive over the Furka and the Grimsel Passes to Meiringen.

The Furka is a real experience as is the Grimsel. At the top of the Grimsel Pass there is a big parking area and you can get out and admire the scenery all around. One year we were up there hiking in snow and perspiring because the sun was so hot.

A man drove up in a small wagon with a huge Bernese Mountain Dog. This big boy jumped out and started wallowing in the snow with great energy. Then he started bounding around like he knew what he was doing. He was one happy dog.

Notice above that I said Interlaken West. There is a reason for doing so. The trains to Lauterbrunnen, where you change for Wengen, all leave from Interlaken Ost.

The ride to Lauterbrunnen takes about 20 minutes. Then you need about another 15 minutes or so to ride up the hillside to Wengen.

From Wengen the train continues to Kleine Scheidegg where Jungfraujoch passengers change again.

One excursion I strongly recommend is to take the Luftseilbahn (cable lift car) to the crest of that towering ridge that dominates your view to the East.

From up there, take in the view. Then walk the easy trail to Kleine Scheidegg. From there you can walk up to the Eigergletscher station (or ride) and take a look at the north wall of the Eiger. You can also get a look at some of the glaciers that come off the Mönch and the Jungfrau.

Another favorite excusion of mine is one that is now too physically demanding. Take the train to Grindelwald, walk up the main street (to the west) to the gondola that goes to First (means ridge). From there hike to the Backsee, skirt it on the west side, and huff and puff up to the top of the Faulhorn where there is a mountain hotel.

The view from up there is incredible. To me it makes the Schilthorn view look a little weak.
You can see both of the lakes on either side of Interlaken, the whole (seemingly) of the Berner Oberland, and get long views to the north across the lakes.

I think on that hike, if the day is clear, you could easily take 100 pictures.

Suffice it to say that if the sun shines, you will have all the photo ops you want!! Be sure to have a UV filter and plenty of chip capacity and some lithium batteries.

One word of photographic suggestion:
those mountains are back lit so it is easy to overexpose the pictures.
I bracketed mine. Of course I ended up tossing about half or more of them after I looked at the screen.
Lighting is tricky. I got my exposure set fairly well by setting the aperture at F 8.0 and trying different shutter speeds until things looked right. I ended up shooting many pictures in the manual mode, inspecting them, deleting, and resetting the shutter until I got what looked ok.

I wanted to stay with F8.0 to get the depth of field and the sun was bright enough that I was shooting at around 1/500 which minimized camera shake. I get a little of that even with stabilization features built-in.

bob_brown

PS we had our own fun with the GPS in the Mercedes we had for the visit. Like many of those gadgets, my reaction is just give me a good map!!

My wife was driving the car when we decided to see what the hamlet of Saxeten looked like. We plugged Saxeten into the GPS and started doing exactly what it said. As we neared Interlaken Ost, the thing began gibbering. Turn here, turn there.

We ended up driving into some guy's garage. My wife calmly backed up and went back to where we should have turned left rather than right.

We knew it was wrong; we just wanted to see where that silly babbling thing would send us. Well, we found out.

I don't have time to tell you about trying to follow the GPS to Engstligen Falls when we had to detour in Spiez. Had we followed that thing we might have ended up driving into the Thuner See.

TuckH

We considered the Hotel Palazzo Salis but didn't find a scenic view so here's where we had lunch in Soglio (at that very table shown in the photo)...

http://www.stua-granda.ch/ristorante.html

LLindaC

True, the restaurant is outside in a gorgeous garden setting under sprawling chestnut trees. I sound like their PR person! Anyway, the food there was just amazing...all homemade pasta..

bob_brown

OOPS In Grindelwald, the First Gondola valley station is to the EAST of the train station. You walk east on the main street for about half a mile before you can see the aerial cables rising to your left.

Of the towns in the area, Grindelwald is the largest and has the most activity. It is very large compared to Wengen.

xyz99

Wow, I step away for a couple of hours and I get a ton of good info. You guys are fantastic!

Tuck, I am a sucker for views from the top of the mountain, but I see your point about seeing the same scenery over and over again. Haven’t heard about the trip from Julierpass to Savognin and the lift there, definitely need to look into it. And thanks for helping me choose one peak/lift in the area.

I don’t know how I forgot about Soglio, gets great reviews here – that’s definitely the way we’ll spend the day that we’re driving to Lugano. Need to write this down, so I don’t forget “lunch in the gardens behind the Hotel Palazzo Salis in Soglio”. Actually, I’m going to print this entire thread. And the view from Stua Granda, oh my…I want to go there now!

Bob, I need to look at the map and call Avis, too. We got a 7-days reduced rate, not sure how much adding an extra day will be.

Where does the lift to Luftseilbahn start from?

I have a good amount of memory for my cameras (12 GB for my dSLR and another 8 for my point-and-shoot). This should be enough for 14 days, don’t you think? Both cameras use the same battery type, and I have a charger for it and a spare, so no worry there. Bob, thanks for the photographic suggestions, I was wondering what the best way was… I guess I’ll have to try and see what works best. So happy that I switched to digital a couple years ago

We’ll have a GPS, too and we usually trust it in new places. But I have a pretty good sense of direction, so we’ll see. And as always, getting lost in a different place is sometimes so much fun, and you discover these remote places that you would’ve never found otherwise…

Thank you so much for all the advice, definitely need to print this thread.

bob_brown

After my recent rental experience, I don't know what the rental contract might turn into if you tack on an 8th day. I just had a relatively wacky contract through AutoEurope myself that ended with us returning the car in Interlaken rather than at the airport in Zürich. The deciding factor was cost.

Moving the drop point changed the rate. So I returned in Interlaken.

In this particular case, I think that the added cost of keeping the car one extra day might be worth it unless there was a steep escalation in the total cost.

Driving over any or all of those 3 passes (Grimsel, Sustern, Furka) is a good way to get a first hand look at Swiss engineering and that incredible scenery. We have been over the Grimsel Pass the most because it is the long way around to Zermatt from Lauterbrunnen, but we have done the other two as well.

My wife usually does most if the driving while I read the maps. She respects those roads, but they do not scare her in the way some people react.

The Swiss have quite a few names for those mountain lift systems that depend on a cable.

A Luftseilbahn is usually a cable system with one large cabin that holds anywhere from 30 to 80 people. They are fairly common around the mountain area. A Golbahn is similar but it is a string of 4 to 6 passenger cars that travel in a continuous stream.

There are two fairly long gondola systems in the area. One goes from Grindelwald to First; the other one goes from Grindelwald Grund (down the hill from the main part of the town) to the crest of the Männlichen.

The Luftseilbahn in Wengen goes from the village up to the crest of the Männlichen. It is a very steep ascent on the eastern face.

You will see it rising out of Wengen rather easily. The lower station is a short walk along the main street of Wengen. It is located near some tennis courts. The cable masts will be obvious to you.

There is also a new Luftseilbahn in Lauterbrunnen that takes people up the steep west side of the valley to a spot called Grutschalp. There passengers have an option:
take the tram to Mürren, or walk it.
The trail is wide and relatively flat, considering that you are in the mountains. We did it a couple of weeks ago for about the 3rd time.
I suggest walking from Grutschalp to Wengen beause you are facing the higher peaks of the mountains as you go along.

If you want a longish hike. I suggest checking out the Eiger North Wall Trail. The lower trailhead is in a village called Alpiglenn which is on the Grindelwald - Kleine Scheidegg rail line. The upper trailhead is near the Eigergletscher station on the Jungfraubahn that goes from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch.

If you are in good shape, I suggest walking uphill on the trail because of the surface. Parts of it are gritty scree that makes footing a little bit treacherous at times.

Now if you want a real blockbuster of a hike, tackle the trail from Griesalp over the Sefinin Furka to Mürren. That one is a trek!!

It can be done by a good hiker, but it is a long day unless you spend the night in the Lauterbrunnen area. The English fellow I spoke with spent the night in Griesalp and then hiked over the top.

He encountered quite a bit of soft snow in early July. By the time you get there the Sefinin Furka (Pass) should be virtually free of snow.

I think you will have enough firepower for the situation. I always carry along an extra storage unit for my camera because if something happens to the bytes, you are out of film!! I also pack extra batteries just in case!! (My fancy Canon S5IS has no battery indicator that I have yet found that estimates remaining life. If it has one, I wish someone would tell me how to use it. It has so much on it that I have not used all the features yet.)

I must have deleted 70 to 75% of all the pictures I took while I was there. I sat on the balcony of our apartment and took many shots of Staubbach Falls under different lighting conditions and a wide variety of settings. I think out of several dozen I got two keepers!!

Now that I have the jpgs on the computer, a few more have bitten the dust. That is the great thing about a digital camera, you can look at the results and delete it on the spot. That step recaptures storage space.

I can suggest a few more hikes if you would like for me to. Just let me know.

bob_brown

Make that Gondolbahn.

There is also a Sesselbahn that is an open chairlift, something we would call a ski lift. The only one I know of in the area is in Kandersteg.

There used to be a Drehtseilbahn between Lauterbrunnen and Grutschalp. The contraption was like an elevator on wheels that ran on railroad-like tracks. The passenger car was pulled up and lowered down the mountain by a cable. It has now been replaced by the higher capacity Luftseilbahn.

You can still see the old trackbed, however, becasuse the new Luftseilbahn uses the same sites for the terminals.

There is also a Luftseilbahn that goes from Stechelberg at the end of the Lauterbrunnen Valley all the way to the top of the Schilthorn.

The line goes up in 3 stages with two changes of cabin on the way:
Stechelberg to Gimmelwald, Gimmelwald to Mürren, and Mürren to the Schilthorn.

A post bus takes passengers from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg, or people with a car can drive there and park, for a fee.

xyz99

Bob,
This is a ton of great info, thank you so much. Will have to call Avis on Monday and see how much they would add for dropping off the car in Interlaken and one more day.

We are in decent shape (not good), but would not attempt any serious, strenuous hike. Relatively flat ones, for 2-3 hrs at a time are the ones we’re thinking of. Some of your suggestions are exactly what we were hoping for (lots of gondolas – however they call them - and easy hikes) – so thanks a lot.

I saw some great pictures of the Staubbach Falls on the internet, hope to get some decent ones, too. Actually, I’m hoping for tons of decent pictures from this vacation

deladeb

We've been back for a week from a similar journey...tons of wonderful photos! I would choose the funicular up to Muottas Muragl instead of Diavolezza cable car. You get a great view of the MTN/glacier for free if you just drive as you are heading towards it (Diavolezza). When you are up at Muottas Muragl make sure you take a sliding swing ride at the playground.
Be sure to walk around Lake Silvaplana and enjoy the Kite Surfers. There is also an easy hike around lake Sils thru the edge of the woods (shade was a welcome relief from the warm temps we had)I was surprised how close everything was in the Engadine Valley. There is BIG Coop grocery store you will drive by when going thru Saint Moritz. The parking garage there offers 1 hour of free parking. If you like chocolate there is a yummy chocolate granola cereal called "Crunch Muesili Choco" it is good plain as a snack, high up on a mountain with blue skies and puffy clouds or with milk.
Drive over to Grindelwald during your stay in Wengen and ride the Luge(we're in our 40's and enjoyed it!) We also enjoyed going up to Mannlichen and hiking. Trummel?? falls near Lauterbrunnen was neat.
The Julier Pass does offer some different scenery, we enjoyed our ride thru there.
I hope your stay in the Lakes will be cooler than ours...we were there when it was 95 (and no AC or even a ceiling fan) We flew from EWR to Geneva. I wish you a wonderful trip!