Two Week Switzerland Trip - September 2014 - Critique Please
 

My husband and I are planning a two week trip to Switzerland in September of this year. We will have 14 nights, one of which will be flying. My initial plan was to fly in and out of Zurich. However, I discovered that an open jaw into Zurich and out of Geneva will only be about $30 more expensive (based on current flight costs). We like nature, hiking, villages and good food, but aren't into glitz. We will most likely have a 15 day Swiss Pass, but that will be determined once I have a firmer plan and can run the numbers for all the options. Please critique our initial itinerary which is loosely based on a two week trip recommended by Rick Steves. Some of the plans may not be feasible, but I think for the most part this should work.

Day 1 - Fly
Day 2 - Arrive in Zurich around 8:30 AM; sightseeing and lunch in Zurich. Train to Appenzell for one night.
Day 3 - Morning in Appenzell; train to St. Gallen to visit Stiftsbibliothek. Train to Lucerne for two nights.
Day 4 - Mt. Pilatus Circle; Lion Monument. Sleep Lucerne.
Day 5 - Late morning departure on Wilhelm Tell Express to Lugano for two nights
Day 6 - Day trip to Bellizona and possibly Locarno and/or Ascona. Sleep Lugano.
Day 7 - 10 AM Bernina bus to Tirano to pick up Bernina Express to Pontresina. Sleep Pontresina.
Day 8 - Depart at 9 or 10 AM on Glacier Express for Zermatt. Sleep Zermatt.
Day 9 - Morning in Zermatt; train to Lauterbrunnen for 4 nights. Sleep Lauterbrunnen.
Day 10 - Jungfraujoch, Kleine Scheidegg, Aletsch Glacier; Wengen. Sleep Lauterbrunnen.
Day 11 - Train to Interlaken for St. Beatus Caves in AM; Train to Bern PM. Back to sleep in Lauterbrunnen.
Day 12 - Schilthorn with breakfast at Piz Gloria; Gimmelwald and Murren. Sleep in Lauterbrunnen.
Day 13 - Train to Interlaken for journey on Golden Pass route to Montreux; walk to Chillon; on to Geneva for two nights.
Day 14 - Day trip to Gruyeres for fondue lunch and back to Geneva to explore lake in the evening. Sleep Geneva.
Day 15 - Afternoon flight home.

14 days in Sweitzerland. What a lot. Just me.

I have to ask--since you are relying on Rick Steves, have you been to anywhere in Europe before?

Hi,

I don't understand the 1 night in Zermatt at all. The Glacier Express is an 8 or so hour trip alone. While it is scenic (as are a lot of Swiss train trips), our Glacier Express trip took 9 hours and we couldn't wait for it to end. You'll arrive in Zermatt very late afternoon/early evening and leave the next morning. Why go all the way to Zermatt with a very slim chance of even glimpsing the Matterhorn? Luzern and the lake, villages, etc. deserve at least 2 full days/3 nights in my opinion.The only thing I'm liking here on your trip is the 4 nights in the BO, although I'd base "up" in the mountains (Wengen, Muerren) instead of in the valley in Lauterbrunnen. Just our preference. We loved our 4 nights based in Wengen and wished we had allowed more time to stay there. I think you have plenty of time to have a great trip, but you're trying to see it all, which I think is a mistake. I'd suggest 3 or 4 places to base and you'll experience a lot more. You have 7 different "bases" in 14 days.

Paul

We thought the town/castle at Gruyere was much more interesting than the cheese factory (to be fair, I had a few weeks prior been on a private tour of a cheese factory in Parma). The Cailler chocolate factory is near there as well and although a bit kitschy we enjoyed it.

We stayed 2 nights in Lauterbrunnen and liked it very much. I would recommend making dinner reservations though as we found ourselves at a loss one night for dinner.

We had a quick stopover in Lugano which was beautiful. Had surprisingly great pizza in the main square. Would have loved more time there.

Also - do brace yourself for the costs in Switzerland. It is extremely expensive. I'll never forget getting the bill for dinner the first night and my sister in law being flabbergasted that the price on the menu for the fondue was per person, not for the three of us!

Have a great time - Switzerland is beautiful! Oh - and if you're feeling particular adventurous we did an amazing 250ft jump off a platform into a canyon just outside of Lauterbrunnen.

I've been planning a two week trip to switzerlandtoo, and your itinerary looks exhausting. It feels like you've tried to string together the big scenic train trips, and a couple of major sights, but you don't have any time to just be in a place. Like Luzern....you have two nights, but you don't even spend the day you have IN Luzern. Or Geneva...why stay there at all? You aren't actually pending any time there, wouldn't it make more sense to stay in Montreux? I think you would have a more rewarding trip if you reduced the moving around.

And finally, are you flying overnight from the US? Because your first day or two look pretty tough when jet lagged. But that's me. I couldn't stand not having a chance to drop my baggage, rest, and change my flight worn clothes until so late on day 1. But if you' ex done that before and it works for you, then go for it.

As others are noting, you will be spending a LOT of time going from place to place with little or no time to actually see anything. AND if the weather is not cooperative, some of those journeys will yield very little indeed. This plan will, at best, let you skim the surface of a number of places that IMO deserve further exploration. So give some serious consideration to the excellent advice you have already been given and think about how much time you are willing to devote to travel at the expense of things you might be able to see if you choose a more limited set of destinations.

FWIW, I don't find Rick Steves's guidebooks very useful, in large part because they lead people to believe that plans like this one make sense. IME, this guidebook series skips much of what is worth visiting in any given destination and suggests skimming the surface of even the few things that are covered. Before you commit to a plan, I strongly encourage you to invest in at least one or two other guide books.

At least you are allowing yourself several days for the Bernese Oberland, and that's a good thing. I'm not sure that your plan for those days if fully doable, and I must admit that I thought 1.5 days a bit too little for Bern, but you'll be able to consider your priorities each day you are there in light of the weather. And FWIW, I seem to be among a very small set of Fodorites who was glad to stay in Lauterbrunnen.

Good luck!

Well I'm not surprised by the reactions...so much to do and so little time. I always seem to start with more lofty plans than we end up with, but we are used to moving around.

@Gretchen...I've spent hours reading multiple guidebooks (Fodor's, Frommers, Moon, Lonely Planet, etc) but the Rick Steves 2 week trip I came across on the internet seemed to hit most of the places that interest us. I'm not sure what your comment has to do with traveling in Europe. But yes...I've been to Spain (5 wks) and Italy (2 wks). Do you have any constructive advice?

@Paul...interesting comment about the Matterhorn. Really the only reason I have Zermatt as a stop is to see the Matterhorn. I considered leaving it off the itinerary, so maybe I'll rethink that option. When we were in Costa Rica several years ago I never got to see the Arenal Volcano clearly, but we stayed in that location several days to see other things so it wasn't a wasted trip! I really think we will like the valley, although the lodging options are not as plentiful.

@Hez...I'm already experiencing the sticker shock we will have on this trip. Especially since we'll be visiting Guatemala in May and it is so cheap! I think we'll skip the canyon jump. I was able to convince hubby to do some very high and long ziplines in Monteverde, Costa Rica, but he freaked out on the hanging bridges. LOL

@china_cat...I'd be interested in hearing about your itinerary. I considered Montreux instead of Geneva, but thought since we might fly out of Geneva, that we should just stay there. The departure point is still up for debate depending on what our final plans look like. Good point about the clothes too; that kind of slipped my mind. We do pretty well with recovering from jet lag.

LOL! Have done some zip-lining in Costa Rica - if you hubby freaked out on that the canyon jump is definitely not for him!

Hi Deb15July,

I also think you are trying to do too much with too little time. Remember that every time you move bases, you lose about half a day of "outside" time just to do the chores of packing up and checking out, then checking in and unpacking again. So, with 7 separate bases, you'll be losing about 3 1/2 days. That leaves you with little time to see the places you'll be visiting -- really you'll only be setting foot in many of your spots. Really, with 13 nights, I would keep it to a maximum of 4 bases (3 bases would be best imo). Sure, you won't be able to see everything on your wish list, but . . . that's what return trips are for!

Oh, you can see Gruyeres as a short detour from the Golden Pass train route -- that will save you some time rather than going from Geneva, which will be a long trip. Also, you can get to the Geneva airport in about 90 minutes from Montreux, so I would still choose Montreux for a base on Lake Geneva.

Have fun as you plan!

s

You plan to go to 2 of the most beautiful mountain aeras of Switzerland (Engiadina Alta: St. Moritz, Pontresina, Diavolezza; Zermatt, a place in the middle of the highest mountains and glaciers of Switzerland) without visiting them. You plan just to sleep 1 night there. So you will see nothing at all of the natural beauty of these areas.
I would either stay a few days in each of these areas or skip them completely.

The Aletsch Glacier is visited from Brig-Riederalp and NOT from Lauterbrunnen. You can see the upper half of this glacier at a certain distance from Jungfraujoch, however.

Gruyeres lies more or less along the Golden Pass route Interlaken - Montreux. You will waste you time if you go to Geneva first and backtrack then all the way to Gruyeres.

I suppose you will buy a Swiss Saver Pass for 15 days. So it doesn't really matter from which airport you will fly home. The train ride from Geneva or Montreux to Zurich airport lasts just 3 hrs, trains every 30 min

You may have a look at
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/en/
http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en

BTW:
what about Zurich airport - Rhine Falls - Stein am Rhein - St. Gallen - Appenzell - Altstaetten - Chur - Bernina Express - Tirano - Lugano - Bellinzona - Locarno - Centovalli Express - Domodossola - Brig - Zermatt - Visp - Montreux - Gruyeres - Golden Pass - Interlaken - Jungfrau area stuff - Brunig - Lucerne - Zurich airport?

Hi Deb,
We're going late May/early June. My plan, not set in stone yet, is to arrive in Zurich, train straight to Lucerne. Then we do 3 nights Lucerne, golden pass train to Montreux, 3 or 4 nights Montreux, 4 nights in Wengen, 3 nights in Brienz, and then fly out of Zurich. We're hoping to go to Zermatt as a day trip from Montreux, or on the day we train from Montreux to Wengen if the weather permits.

You are lucky you don't suffer too much from jetlag. We have a horrid time getting over it. This trip we are going to spend a day or 2 in Iceland on the way over, so when we arrive in Zurich we shouldn't be quite so out of it. We avoid missing a full nights sleep, so it should help a lot.

the biggest hole in my itinerary is missing the Engadin and also the area northeast of Zurich (St Gallen, Winterthur, Stein am Rhein). Maybe we'll shorten the time in the Berner Oberland in order to add one of those. But I always try to schedule fewer locations in order to see more in each spot. I know my itineraries always seem about half as busy as everybody elses.

by the way, i think unless your flight is very early, you can easily get from Montreux to Geneva airport on the day you leave. I was looking at doing that at one point, and it seemed simple enough. (Icelandair doesn't fly out of Geneva, hence headed back to Zurich, in my case)

The first train from Montreux arrives at GVA airport at 6.24am (and at ZRH airport at 8.20am).

Thanks for the additional info china!

It is looking like Montreux would be a better destination for the end of our trip since the train to Geneva isn't that long. We currently plan to take a mid-afternoon flight, so I guess we would need to be at the airport no later than Noon. Unfortunately, that probably would eliminate any sightseeing in Geneva.

Zermatt as a day trip from Montreux sounds like an interesting option. However, it seems other posters might not agree!

neckervd...thanks for the Montreux/GVA schedule info and for the links. I didn't have the last one mentioned, but I already had the others bookmarked.

So I can't tell if your BTW comment on your original post was sarcastic or serious. I'm obviously trying to tweak our itinerary (as I knew in my heart I would) but having a hard time cutting places!

@kja...the initial proposed itinerary does have a huge amount of moving around. I knew I would have pushback on those plans and am hoping to continue receving the type of comments you and SOME others provided. The weather is something I need to research more as I did read Zermatt is not worth the visit in bad weather. I have the scenic train schedules accounted for, but I don't know how much time some of the other travel will entail.

I'm actually not much of a Rick Steves's fan either...I hate his hand-drawn maps as they always seem skewed. My daughter and I were actually picked up by his driver several years ago in Assisi (we were walking in the rain). We'd been walking in circles since his map was so bad and I told him to let Rick know! As mentioned earlier, at the moment I have about four different guidebooks checked out from the library. If I decide to buy a guidebook for a trip, I generally wait until closer to our departure and then buy the one that seems the most useful!

We are trying to concentrate a good bit of time on the Bernese Oberland; it is at the top of our must do list. I will need to tweak our days there as I do more research. I'm also wrapping up planning for a trip in May, so I have to split my research between the two destinations! I keep hearing about Bern, but don't know much about it other than it's the capital and a UNESCO World Heritage site. And FWIW, I think I will be joining the very small set of Fodorites who enjoy a stay in Lauterbrunnen.

I'm hoping to go to Bern as a daytrip from Brienz, when we have a rainy day. Either that, or we'll stay there on our last night, since Bern-Zurich airport is an easier ride than Brienz-Zurich. It seems like Bern is an interesting place to just walk around and see the medieval city.

I think you might be giving short shrift to Lucerne. I decided 3 nights so we would have 2 full days there. One day for the city itself...the transportation museum, the Rosengart collection, the lion monument, the old town, maybe the Glacier garden...then one day for a mountain excursion. And with two days we can pick the better weather for our mountain trip. I'm leaning towards Rigi right now, but I may change my mind.

@swandav...as I said earlier, I figured I would get the feedback that I had too many bases. I was just hoping I would hear the original plan is doable and not totally crazy! I'm trying to weigh options and decide what we can cut.

I'm glad to hear that Gruyeres is only a short detour from the Golden Pass train route. At this point I'm leaning toward Montreux for two nights instead of Geneva, since it sounds like we will have plenty of time to get to the airport for an afternoon flight.