MySwissAlps.com features ads, commercial and non-commercial Switzerland summer trip report – Car and train
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Thanks to all the contributors of this forum, we have finished a wonderful 11-day-travelling in Switzerland.
Apart from 3 days car-hiring, we used public transport and walk.
We bought and printed the Swiss Half Fare Card at home easily. Train tickets to Zermatt, Lausanne and Geneva respectively were bought one time at Zurich Station without wasting much time.
Wifi in all hotels were good and beyond our expectation. Electric sockets were installed ‘generously’ in hotel rooms, which facilitates the nowadays priority task of charging various devices. Please mind if air-conditioner is available in hotel room as it was really hot, in summer of course.
Day 1 – Arrival at Zurich Airport in the afternoon after a long-haul flight. We bought sim card at Salt Shop adjacent to the airport. The staff set up the sim within minutes. The connection of the sim was good throughout the ten days of the journey.
We rode tram direct from Airport to our hotel at Old Town. Tram tickets were bought with our Swiss Half Fare Card.
Day 2 – Picked up car at Hertz near Zurich Station and headed to Rhine Falls. The weather was good. We had a light lunch watching the fall by the river. In the afternoon we walked around the nice small town Stein am Rhein. To avoid tiredness/jet lag, we had a short travel to the hotel at Stadd for a refreshed break. While having our dinner by Lake Constance we watched a beautiful sunset.
Day 3 – Towards Zernes, we took the Vereina Car Transporter half way. We had lunch at Zernes and walked around the quiet small town. We drove up to the Swiss National Park and left there to Route 27. We went through the Albula Pass towards Vira, Gambarogno. We enjoyed very much the experience of Swiss motorways that day.
Day 4 – Before heading back to Zurich, we stopped at Fox Town Outlet to do some shopping. We drove via A2 and met the renowned traffic jam at the entrance of St. Gotthard Tunnel. We met the second traffic jam at the outskirts of Zurich in that Sunday afternoon. We managed to arrive at Hertz shop just before its closing time. We did not fill up the tank but the staff was kind enough to allow us to go to petrol station and return.
Day 5 – Walked around the city of Zurich in the morning. We departed to Zermatt in the afternoon. All the mentioned train tickets were bought one time with our Swiss Half Fare Card at Zurich station. The weather was bad at Zermatt.
Day 6 – Bought discounted ‘2-day Zermatt Peak Pass’ with SHFC. We went up to the Glacier Paradise by cable car and gondola and return. The weather was bad still and could not see the Matterhorn. In the afternoon, we rode the mountain train to go up to Gornergrat. After check-in the Kulmhotel, we did a short hiking to Riffelberg and from there rode the train back. We were longing to see the night scene of Matterhorn, but the weather was bad that it was totally dark and could see nothing in the sky.
Day 7 – We enjoyed watching the close landscape of glacier around Gornergrat, thought we could not see the Matterhorn because of the weather. Going to Rothorn from Zermatt in the afternoon, we rode the funicular to Sunnegga and change gondola to Blauherd. Until we reached Blauherd, there was a notice that the cable car towards Rothorn was suspended because of the weather. So we went hiking down to Sunnegga and return to Zermatt via the funicular.
Day 8 – After walking around the Zermatt town, we took the train and enjoyed a scenic ride to Lausanne in the afternoon. The weather was bad again in the evening.
Day 9 – Visited the lake front and the Olympic Museum. We went to the Lavaux Vineyard by train with the Lausanne Transport Card before noon. It was a sunny day. We visited some vineyards and tasted nice local wine at lunch. We rode the train to Geneva in the afternoon.
Day 10 – One day trip to Annecy by bus. It was worthwhile to spend about 4 hours travelling to and fro the beautiful French town.
Day 11 – Farewell to the beautiful Switzerland.
Cheers!
MaRock
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Hi MaRock!
Thanks for your excellent and detailed trip report – much appreciated and great to here your time here was enjoyable. 🙂
Lucas
Hi Lucas,
Thank you very much! This Forum is unmatchable.
MaRock
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