Winterthur

Winterthur made its fortune through the textile industry and blossomed thanks to prosperous merchants who developed a love of art. They bequeathed the town some notable art museums, including the sublime Sammlung Oskar Reinhart Am Römerholz; the Villa Flora/Sammlung Hahnloser (www.villaflora.ch), a Sezession-style villa with works by Vincent Van Gogh, Odilon Redon, Édouard Vuillard, and Henri Matisse; and the Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten (www.museumoskarreinhart.ch), which focuses on lesser-known painters Reinhart hunted down, such as Caspar David Friedrich and Arnold Böcklin. To get here, take any one of the trains leaving from the Hauptbahnhof or the Bahnhof Stadelhofen in Zürich every hour. Once you arrive in Winterthur, take the "Museumsbus" (5 SF) from the train station's Sektor M; it runs daily except Monday and takes 15 minutes (the last return bus leaves the museum at 5 pm). By car, follow the autobahn signs for Winterthur–St. Gallen. Take the Winterthur-Ohringen exit onto Schaffhauserstrasse into town, then go left on Rychenbergstrasse to Haldenstrasse.