dmg234

Thank you so much for the friendly, positive wonderful posts!! I'm going to do some research based the very helpful responses and go from there. Again, thank you!!

PalenQ

Zurich I have found really nice and interesting - especially a walk along the lake on nice days sees a multi-national brigade of ethnicities parading around - musicians everyone, kind of like a street fair - and those hill-climbing trams and

Bahnofstrasse - often called the world's most swank street, being lined by HQs of big banks and watch and jewelry boutiques, etc - at least even if just changing trains in Zurich poke out the entrance where Bahnhofstrasse begins and walk down in a few blocks

anyway Zurich is really neat... that said if I had never been to Switzerland before I'd head to sweeter places like Lucerne and especially the Alps and the Jungfrau Region being my #1 recommended destination for anyone never having been to Switzerland before.

Zurich is a neat city but the main lures of Switzerland are not its spic-and-span (and at night boring IME with the sidewalks rolled up - even in the Zurich train station once everything shut up before 7 or 8 it seemed save a few snack stands) cities. In Switzerland head for the hills to see the dreamy picture of Switzerland etched in many folks' minds.

dreamon

The Bernese Oberland is fantastic but perhaps take Bodensee area into consideration as well. Places like Meersburg. Schaffhausen and Stein am Rhein are not far away by boat and train. You could divide your time between Zurich, somewhere in Bernese Oberland and somwhere on Bodensee. That would give you three entirely different experiences.