[CabinJon]

11 October 2026 at 14:12:47 #2799157

My wife and I just returned from a 15 day trip in Switzerland, where we’ve visited before. We hope the information and observations will be helpful to others in planning and enjoying their trips.

 

Day 1

Our overnight flight from the US arrived very early in the morning at Frankfurt. All anxieties about being delayed by the new EU Entry Exit System (EES) were for naught, but only because the system was apparently suffering a technical glitch, resulting in the border guards simply stamping our passports the old-fashioned way and waving us through.

I did not find an official bank ATM at the airport so used one of the non-bank kiosks. Fortunately, I only wanted 20 Euros, but when I saw the hefty total fees involved in the transaction, I hit the “decline” button. Which the machine ignored, issued me 20 Euros, and did not provide a receipt. Next trip I will look harder for an official bank ATM, or wait to get real coffee until I get to Zurich.

Quick connection to Zurich, get Swiss francs at a bank ATM in the airport, pick up the Wifio, and catch a train to the main train station, where we stop at the Brasserie Federale for a couple draft beers before catching a train to Montreux. If you have time, the Brasserie Federale is a nice place to take a break from your travels while passing through Zurich.

We discovered the uphill escalator in Montreux that takes you from the lakeside street & promenade to the main street in front of the train station isn’t working, and the 67 steps from bottom to top let you know if you’re in shape or not. An outdoor elevator about 120’ down the street near the Barrel Oak pub in the opposite direction is working, although a touch small, especially when a couple folks get on with those ungodly huge hard case suitcases.

 

Day 2

I previously asked for and received advice from MSA members on where to do some wine tasting while in Montreux. I certainly appreciate the responses but due to superior planning on my part, but in reality completely due to luck, the Lavaux wine harvest festival began in Lutry the day we arrived, a 20 minute train ride away. So that’s where we went today. We found two wine vendor spots, and sampled 4 or 5 wines. Our favorites were the Pierre-Andre and Stephane Blondel Chasselas, Anthony Mottaz Chasselas, and Claude Midgard Le Chaney Lavaux Pinot Gris.  I can understand why not much of the Swiss wine is found outside the country, the Swiss drink it all. The food vendors outnumbered the wine folks, but it was a fun day, the lakeside setting was great, and we left after a few hours.

 

Day 3

Our plan for today is go to Gruyeres for the cheese factory tour & store, then to Gruyeres village for some lunch, then on to the Maison Cailler chocolate factory in Broc for the tour, multiple samples, and a bit of chocolate shopping.

After the cheese factory tour, we bought two chunks of aged Gruyere (14 & 24 month) and caught the B260 bus to Gruyeres village. We didn’t eat lunch at any of the crowded local restaurants in favor of taking the Chateau Gruyere (castle) tour instead, which was free with the STP. That was actually pretty nice, it was well-signed to explain which room you were in, the floors were much easier to walk on than those at Castle Chillon, although still a bit challenging in terms of paying attention to where you placed your foot. We left the village to catch the same bus to Broc, where we caught a train to Broc Chocolatier, the Maison Caillier factory.

Once again, the STP gained us entrance, the history tour was informative, and the tasting session was the highlight of my day. We bought a few bars plus a tin of mixed chocolates for friends back home.

 

Day 4

My wife wakes me to say “I think we missed breakfast, it is 10 o’clock.” Sure enough, we did. The marathon cheese, village and chateau tour, and chocolate sampling from yesterday plus two big wheat beers and a late dinner with two glasses of wine apparently took a bit of a toll on us.

We decide to walk along the promenade in search of a sidewalk cafe or patisserie. And within one block of the elevator we find the Moutarlier Patisserie on the Grand Rue and head inside to peruse and select from the offerings. We end up ordering 4 different pastries, two orange juices, and two coffees, for a total of CHF 38.10. It does NOT pay to miss the free hotel breakfast.

Nonetheless, 3 of the 4 pastries were wonderful, the 4th merely good, the orange juice fresh squeezed, and the coffee OK but not great. We cross over to the promenade, watch the tourists swarming the Freddie Mercury statue for selfies & tourist pics, then meander down to McDonalds for 2 supplementary coffees. Once in hand, we go back to the promenade find a waterfront bench in the shade close to the boat dock, and watch the side wheeler paddle boat come in unload a gaggle of tourists, pick up another gaggle of tourists no doubt headed to Castle Chillon, and depart. Once the boat is about 150 yards away I realize I could have grabbed my phone and taken a video of its departure since it passed directly in front of us at close range. Clearly I’m not yet fully awake.

We decide to take an afternoon boat ride on a loop from Montreux across the lake to St. Gingolph, back across to Vevey and then to Montreux. That takes about 2 hours, with 2 Chasselas wines on the boat, before getting off back where we started. A fine way to spend the warm and sunny afternoon.

 

Day 5

No sleeping in and missing breakfast today. On to Lucerne for our next stop. Once checked in to our hotel later that afternoon, we head off in search of a bite to eat and a beer. We see the Movenpic restaurant just off the Pilatustrasse, and go in for a pizza and couple beers. We order the Margherita pizza, which comes out on a long wood plank, in an elongated oval shape, with the thinnest crust we’ve ever seen, and a giant pair of scissors to cut it with. A new experience for both of us, and it was pretty tasty too. And cheap by Swiss standards at 19.20 CHF. My wife had a large Erdinger Weisse beer while I tried a smaller Eichhof lager, which is a Lucerne beer and really hit the spot.

Crossing the river to the Old Town side, we wandered around for a bit and then stopped at the Schiff riverside cafe for two different Eichhof beers before heading back to the hotel.

 

Day 6

First order of business is going to the SBB office in the train station to get legal tickets for the Italian portion of our short, planned journey to and from Como. The STP, of course, is good all the way to Chiasso, but the 5 minute ride from there to Como is under Italian control, ticketing, and procedures. The nice young lady at the counter is friendly, and efficient. A few minutes later we have separate paper tickets for that part of the trip and the total cost was 5.60 CHF.

After that we take a short walk to the Jesuit church, which is beautifully impressive and is seeing a steady stream of other tourists, all of whom are essentially taking picture after picture while trying to appear as if they aren’t gawking.  I take maybe 10 pics, my wife takes about 100. I can’t believe we’ve walked by this church probably 30-40 times over the years and never gone inside. Don’t make that mistake if you’re in Lucerne.

Then off for a walk along the lake promenade opposite the boat docks in search of the Ass Bar (it is NOT pronounced the English way, more like the Ess bar), the place that sells leftover goodies from respectable restaurants picked up the night before. We each select one pastry that appeals and off we go to visit the Chas Barmettler cheese store in Old Town. I find it easily and we are in luck because they have the wonderful cranberry cheese we found years back, but that had been sold out during our last two trips to Luzern. Yep, we’ll take a piece of that, and a small wedge of Vacherin cheese for good measure.

Time to meander back towards the hotel, put the goodies away, and celebrate our shopping success. Along the way we stop at a small cobblestone alley restaurant called Barbatti for maybe a coffee, but after checking the menu decide on Aperol Spritzes, primarily because we haven’t had those before and thought we should try it and see how it compares to a regular Campari & Soda. Similar but not as good in my opinion, sort of like a Campari & Soda light.

On the way back across the Reuss River, we walk by the Pfistern restaurant and decide to check the menu. To our disappointment, a sign on the door says it is closed until next Spring. We had a wonderful meal there on our very first trip to Switzerland, and we’ve been telling ourselves we need to go back on every subsequent trip but never did; this was going to be the year we did it. Now I’m really going to miss that Cordon Bleu.

Back at the hotel with groceries in the mini fridge, we decide to catch the next boat to Weggis on a warm & sunny afternoon. We disembark and head across the street to Restaurant Oliv, where we find the charcuterie plate we enjoyed on several previous trips is no longer on the menu or even offered. We console ourselves with two Schneider Weisse beers and catch the next boat back, which was fortunately the biggest boat in the fleet (the Diamant) and was already filled with folks heading back to Luzern. We squeezed on, found no seats so leaned against the rail all the way back. My wife suggests we try an eatery that is mentioned in Rick Steves’ book and is right by the boat docks. Good thing no one was tracking us as we looked for it, turns out it is immediately to the right of the main loading spot on Pier 1, where we’ve gotten on every Lake Luzern boat we’ve taken over the years. Almost 40’ away.

The name is Luz Seebistro, and we find outdoor seating at one of the many metal picnic tables at the dock edge. My wife gets a bratwurst & mustard, with an Ur Brau beer (house beer) and I get a curry wurst and a local Einsiedler Radler (basically beer & lemonade). The curry wurst was the preferred choice, and I liked the Radler over the house beer, which should tell you something about the house beer. Rick Steves described the place as “appealingly unpretentious and rough around the edges” and he was right.

We decide to forego having a big dinner, since neither of us could do it justice after the late afternoon wursts & beer at the Luz Seebistro. We settle on the Mavenpick again, since it has light fare, is much closer, and also less expensive. We order another pizza and two small Eichhof lagers. Highlight of the evening is when my wife asks the waiter what “farmer ham” is, since it is listed as a topping. He replies, “it is just ham.” Basically, lunch meat style ham but a bit thicker and tastier. Not bad, and this time we got a little more cheese on the super thin crust pizza.

We skip the gelato, although they had about 30 flavors…..

 

Day 7

A day we will both mostly want to forget. An uneventful train ride to Como. And the good part ended. Como is a difficult city to walk around & explore, especially if you don’t have a good map or any knowledge of buildings, street, attractions, etc. It also seems like almost every city street is cobblestones or rough paving stones, at least 1/2 of the streets are extremely narrow, more like alleyways, and almost all of them are closed in by 4 story buildings on each side. I suppose that is part of any very old town, but Como seemed worse than other old towns we’ve been in. We did get to see the main cathedral, the Duomo, but the basilica we had on our list was closed until after our planned departure time. My wife was using a map tracker and our meandering walk looked like an overlapping drunken path by the time we were done.

On the plus side, we had a nice pasta lunch at the Ristorante Posta, lasagne bolognese for my wife and spaghetti carbonara for me, with 2 glasses of house Chianti each. And another plus was some gelato from Ge-Lab geletaria, pistachio for her, milk chocolate & cherry for me. A kind of plus was we did eventually find our way to the actual lake shore, where she snapped several pics. Frankly, it was a disappointment, and not nearly as picturesque as Luzern, Montreux, or Lugano.

We finally call it a day and go back to the train station. Our planned departure on RE80 at 4:24 did not occur because that train never arrived on the designated track, which was occupied by a local train for almost 45 minutes. Meanwhile, it seems our desired train had arrived and departed on another track without the usually highly efficient SBB app informing us of that change. Hard to keep up with any station announcements when you don’t speak Italian too. So we wait, and wait, and complain to each other, and finally more folks start getting on the train and we figure it is leaving soon for Chiasso & Switzerland. It did leave soon, for the next stop in Italy going in the opposite direction!! I hate the Italian train system. We get off it at the next stop, and finally, after figuring out how to change platforms, we wait for 2 more local trains to pass before catching the next RE80 train back to Lugano, arriving about one hour after our original planned arrival. Did I say I hate the Italian train system? And to add insult to injury, while we were waiting at the unplanned wrong station south of Como, my wife notices that my black Pelican water bottle has disappeared. So, someone in Italy is going to get a nice bonus gift.

Fortunately, once back in Lugano, we find our hotel easily, just down the road from the end of the parking lot at the main train station.

We get a corner room with a partial view of the lake while standing on the balcony.  When booking the room with a “balcony” we assumed a private balcony.  In fact, the balcony is a terrace that runs the length of the hotel with little tables outside every room. 

We haven’t seen all of the hotel but it’s big, built in stages between 1870 and 1906.  The current proprietor’s family has owned it since 1912, now on the fourth generation.  The vineyard where they grow their own grapes is behind the hotel.  They also make their own merlot (red and white) wines that they serve in the restaurant, and distill their own grappa from the merlot mash.  

We decide to eat at the hotel restaurant tonight.  You should make a reservation for dinner, although the nice woman at the front desk showed us how to get to the restaurant and called up to ensure us a table, all the while almost completely hiding her disappointment that we had failed to realize we needed a reservation.

Once seated we order a small bottle of their very own red wine and I order one of the chef’s specials for the night – homemade ravioli with beef braised in their merlot, with butter and sage sauce.  My wife goes for a different chef’s special, her mixed grill of some kind of skinny sausage, marinated spare ribs and pork neck grilled outside on the terrace behind where we are sitting.  Both meals were great. As we went back through the bar after dinner we decided to stop for coffee.  The bartender makes us two Americano style coffees and brings us a little dish of chocolates because “chocolate goes well with coffee.” A nice touch. 

Once in the room, I discover that I can’t get the Wifio to work. I had it with me during our short trip into Italy, and apparently that somehow confused or reset it from its original limitation to only work in Switzerland. My attempts at resetting and restarting didn’t work so I emailed the Wifio support folks.  I should have simply shut it off before heading into Italy but I didn’t know crossing the border would have that effect on it. Note to self: Either get a connection that works in multiple countries or shut it off when leaving its designated area.

 

Day 8

A much better day than yesterday. I have made some progress with the Wifio tech support, but it isn’t working quite yet. We go down for breakfast and I can say this hotel in Lugano puts our hotels in Zurich, Lucerne, Montreux to shame. They put out an expansive spread with large quantities of rolls & breads, yogurt, fresh fruit, cold meats & cheeses, typical hot breakfast foods, four (!) types of croissants, a selection of 4 or 5 small tarts & cheesecakes, and probably some things I’m forgetting. The dining room area in the main hotel has white tablecloths and upscale place settings, and is brightly lit due to the expansive large windows overlooking the hotel courtyard. Truly an upgrade in environment and elegant atmosphere. Everyone we interacted with was very pleasant and helpful.  We are both impressed. And the room was cheaper than the other hotels too.

After checking out, we catch the funicular down to the old part of Lugano and begin walking & wandering in search of the Farmers Market that takes place on Fridays. It is spread out, with multiple individual vendor stalls selling food & produce and others offering a variety of craft offerings such as wooden spoons, weavings, and candles. It becomes clear that if you want to see it, you’re going to have to walk up & down almost every street & alley in Old Town. Which we did.

Our first Market purchase is a variety of dried fruit from a vendor that had a wide selection on hand and doesn’t speak English, but we make do with hand gestures and fingers to arrive at the amounts of each that we want. Then off to find some gelato, at the -9 ice cream shop. Tiramisu & pistachio for me and dark chocolate and salted caramel for the wife. As we’re sitting at the table outside eating it, we decide that it was good but maybe not quite as good as the gelato from the Ge Lab emporium in Como – which was maybe the only good thing about Como. We had thought of getting an espresso at -9 but decided to move on and seek out another coffee spot.

And that was a good decision because we soon found a lovely coffee bar, La Dispensa, in an old high arch stone arcade with numerous small tables, chairs with cushions, a foliage screen from the street, and that just so happens to be at street level below the Austrian Consulate in Lugano. We started with an espresso each, liked that so much we decided a larger quantity of coffee was needed and ordered two Cafe Crema, savored that, and decided to top it off with a Cappuccino each after seeing one being served at the table next to ours. All the coffees were excellent, the setting was great, and we had a very relaxing noontime break. All for a reasonable price. And to top things off, I discover the Wifio is working again. Yahoo!

We walk down to the lake, park ourselves on a bench along the promenade and enjoy the warm sunshine and light breeze. No rush this afternoon. Then we eventually find our way back to the funicular and of course have to stop at the Flamel outdoor terrace at the bottom for a beer before heading up to the train station.

Our time in Lugano is certainly making up for the aggravation of Como yesterday.

 

Day 9

The Farmers Market in Lucerne shouldn’t be missed, set up on both sides of the river. The usual crowds and vendors are there, selling a variety of outstanding produce, local meats & fish, local cheeses, bakery products, sauces and condiments, etc.  We bought a small container of pre-sliced cured salami after tasting one of the free samples; it was an instant “Oh yeah, we gotta get some of this” which cost us a whopping 3.05 CHF. And the nice lady selling it even gave me the .05 CHF back.

The afternoon is a trip to the Stanserhorn, which takes a bit longer this time because the SBB is working on the rail line requiring an 8 minute bus ride between Stansstad and Stans. The funicular ride and cable car to the top is as interesting and enjoyable as always. Once up top, we are immediately greeted by a yodeling club performing a set of songs on the large outdoor observation deck, with 3 paragliders slowly cruising by in the background. You don’t see that very often. Timing is everything.

We go about halfway around the circular path at top, then return to the outdoor deck for an impromptu picnic with supplies from the morning Farmers Market aided by two cold Appenzeller Weizenbier.

Dinner tonight is to just walk over to the riverfront eateries and see who has room for 2 more hungry tourists. The Rathaus is as jammed as we’ve ever seen it outside, and they have a sign up before the interior that simply says “inside full.” So that’s out. We turn and walk down maybe 100’ to the next place, La Barca Vincafe, and although crowded along the river and mostly in the arcade area, we immediately get a 2 person table at the outside end of one of the arches. Perfect.

 

Day 10

Today is Pilatus day. Unlike all other times we’ve taken this trip, when we arrive at Alpnachstad, we were basically the first folks in line for the cogwheel train. We hit the timing just right and got the very first front row seat facing uphill, right behind the driver. This provided a perfect opportunity to take pictures and short videos on the trip up, and we took full advantage of that.

We get to the top, bypass the long line at the gift shop and get a railing-side table on the big plaza in front of the Pilatus Kulm hotel. I order 2 tall Erdinger Weisse beers while my wife conducts a preliminary reconnaissance of the gift shop. We break out the Gruyeres cheese & Farmers Market salami and settle in to enjoy the sunshine. Surprisingly there are not that many people on the terrace, perhaps the least crowded we’ve ever seen, but we have no complaints.

Tonight is dinner at Fritchi’s, and we are quickly seated at a romantic corner table, order the standard fondue for two and two glasses of white wine. Our waiter is not personable at all, at least for us. It seems as if he is pressed for time, doesn’t like to utter an extra syllable, and has the personality of an overworked bartender in a dive bar. Oddly enough, he seems much more friendly & talkative with the tables that have more people. Nonetheless, the fondue is very good but our service was not. We have eaten there before but may not again.

 

Day 11

Today is a boat ride to Vitznau for some exploration. The day was sunny, warm, scattered clouds, perfect for a boat ride. We get off at Vitznau and watch most of the passengers rushing for the Rigi cogwheel train.

Up to the main street and we see a sidewalk cafe one block to our left, but nothing to our right. We go down to the Restaurant Rutli at the corner and join several other people already seated and eating, mostly just couples. It is not crowded by any means, and all the tables are shaded by an awning or those big pop-up umbrellas. Very pleasant and quaint; to us tourists it looks like a locals place although since Vitznau isn’t that big there is probably no distinction between local and tourist restaurants.

The menu looked good but we skip the food since breakfast wasn’t that long ago.  But they had the original Czech Budvar on tap so we immediately order two large drafts. We were enjoying those when, about halfway through our beers, the construction site just up the street comes to life with a concrete saw going full tilt. And it basically didn’t quit. We quaffed the rest of our beer and went in search of another bar we found online, the Epi-bar or Rigi Bar. It was just down the street but doesn’t open until 3 pm. Phooey.

Time for an impromptu waterfront picnic on a sunny bench by the boat dock at the water’s edge. We split a leftover bakery roll, some cheese, more of those Farmers Market salami slices, all washed down by the best tap water Lucerne has to offer. We finish just in time to get ahead of the returning Rigi crowd and are among the first few folks on the boat headed back to Lucerne.

Tonight is dinner at Made in Sud with a 6:30 reservation. Arriving a bit early, we are literally the first folks in the door for inside dining. And when we left there were maybe another 6 inside. Not sure reservations are critical if eating early. The tagliatelle bolognese was excellent, the spaghetti carbonara not as much to our liking since the carbonara sauce was too eggy, too thick, and missing the smoky bacon flavor even though there were decent chunks of thick bacon in it. It was very similar to the lunchtime spaghetti carbonara I had in Como a few days ago, so maybe that is the way they make it in Como and Italian influenced areas of Switzerland. Or maybe that is the way it is supposed to be and not the way Americans make it. We each had a glass of Primitivo wine and that was just as tasty as we remembered.

 

Day 12

We go over to the Lucerne Farmers Market again and find a sealed package with two links of the cured sausage we bought on Saturday for a whopping 6.90 CHF. It is going home. Then back to the hotel to pack up for another Stanserhorn picnic. We buy a fresh roll from a bakery on the way to the train station and take train & bus to Stans, where we get tickets for the next controlled departure, which is about 70 minutes away. I didn’t expect that, especially on a weekday but we kill time by having a couple Eichhof lagers in the little sidewalk cafe next to the Stanserhornbahn station.

A pleasant ride in the old wooden open air funicular cars but the cows on the lower slopes are being lazy today and not moving around, so no cowbell symphony this time. Oddly enough, when walking around the circular trail at the top of the mountain you can usually hear cowbells from the cows way down in the valleys to the south.

After another walk around the circular mountaintop path, we definitely deserve a picnic spread and a beer on the observation deck. My wife lays out the salami, prosciutto, cheese, roll, Dijon mustard, and the Zweifel Paprika chips while I procure two cold Appenzeller Weizenbier and matching glasses. The sun shines a bit brighter and we savor an informal but satisfying lunch. The departure slot we picked when we arrived is for 4:45, still a way away after lunch, so we do the only reasonable thing and have another two Appenzeller.

The timed departures don’t always go with faultless Swiss efficiency, and today is one of those days but the staff is experienced in getting people off the mountain and we leave very close to the designated time. This time the Cabrio stopped at one of the cable stanchions about halfway down to pick up a hiker, something I’d never seen before. The middle stanchion is the only one of the three that has a passenger platform for such occasions.

 

Day 13

Today is our last day in Lucerne and we discover that somehow we have more to take back than we brought over, mostly because my wife is a dedicated shopper whereas I merely pick up a few chocolates along the way, and half of those are gifts for others. Just before checkout we head over to one of the concrete pedestrian bridges to Old Town to watch tourists taking selfies and “look at me” pictures, some of whom are quite taken with their photogenic appeal without justification.

We catch a train to Zurich, check in to our final hotel, and have a light dinner prior to a very early morning departure. This time, we decide to get a taxi to the train station since it may be raining and my wife’s walking isn’t 100% after 2 weeks of touring. The hotel staff arranges for the taxi and assures us the fee will be a fairly low fixed price, about 24 CHF, as opposed to the free market pricing of what he called “local” taxis who have no reservations about imposing large fees. That arranged, time for bed and a really early alarm.

 

Day 14

Up very early, do final repack then downstairs where the taxi to the train station arranged by the hotel is already waiting, and for the price specified. A quick trip to the Zurich Bahnhof, grab two unfortunately substandard espressos at the grab & go stand near platform 8 (avoid this if you can), and on the next fast train to the Flughafen. Check in was quick and uneventful so early, and then to the security checkpoint which was fairly uncrowded and quick, until the security personnel flagged my iPad keyboard case for extra testing and consultation with a supervisor. No idea what set that off but it was resolved without issue.

We grab two coffees and two croissants each at the Villa Antinori restaurant at the airport while waiting for the flight to Frankfurt. An uneventful flight to Frankfurt where it is raining of course – it seems to always be cloudy and raining in Frankfurt. Once again, the EES system appears to not be working or the border control officers don’t feel like using it, so we get our first “exit” stamp in the new passports to match the first “entry” stamps received at Frankfurt when we arrived. Very little waiting in line here too. And for an additional plus, the gate for our flight back to the US is close to our arrival gate.

The flight is long but uneventful and amazingly when we get to Customs after landing there is almost no one in front of us. On other return trips we’ve found 300-500 people waiting in line. We almost breeze through passport/border control until my wife tells the officer she is bringing back cured & factory-wrapped sausage. Uh oh. Now we get special treatment, a new piece of paper and we get to follow the “red line” to a special waiting area. Where we wait. And finally get called to an interview with a CBP officer, who asks what we have and do we have it in our backpacks that we have or the luggage that we don’t have with us. We don’t have the luggage with us, so they record our luggage tags and have someone go get our bags from baggage claim. We wait some more, but fortunately not too long this time. A new CBP officer quickly locates the prohibited vacuum sealed dried & cured sausages – 3 packs in all – and unceremoniously dumps them into a big trash bin in front of us. And then we are free to go. Adios two Christmas presents for the boys and some of that outstanding cured sausage we bought at the Luzern Famers Market for us. Lesson learned.

 

Final Thoughts:

Get a Swiss Travel Pass if you want maximum flexibility in travel options, it is indispensable for us. We used it for 30 trains, 5 boats, 6 funiculars, 4 cable cars/gondolas, 8 buses, plus free entry to a few attractions and discounts on others. And get the SBB app for your phone too, it makes impromptu changes a breeze.

Having Internet connectivity goes without saying, we used Wifio and it worked flawlessly everywhere in Switzerland where I specified I wanted service but had issues when I took it to Italy for 4 hours and didn’t shut it off. My fault entirely.

Be flexible. Weather, construction, closures, schedules, and other items can all change and often do. Be prepared to modify original plans to make the most of it and look for opportunities to do something different. Although we’ve been to Switzerland several times and have our favorite places, we made a conscious effort to do something new in each location and sometimes on each day. We find some great places that way with lasting memories.

Last, be sure of exactly what you can bring back home with you before you pack it. It hurts to see those items go into a big trash can.

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