[Anonymous]

5 February 2018 at 3:50:26 #814254

Hi, we are looking a booking a 12 day guided tour starting 27th April or 7th June but not sure which dates give us the best experiences. We do enjoy the wildflowers but are more keen to see snow-covered mountains, particularly up close. I guess we are influenced by photos of the Glacier Express being surrounded by snow.

The tour starts in Munich, going by coach over 5 days via Leichtenstein and Austria arriving on the afternoon of day 5 in Bern, from there it includes day trips to Lucerne, and Mount Rigi, then on to St Moritz arriving on day 7. We then board the Glacier Express to Zermatt where we will have day trip to Gornergrat. The tour ends with coach travel to Montreux on day 10, with a day trip to Lake Geneva and Chillon Castle with our final day in Zurich. A busy tour but it will be our first trip to Switzerland.

Being Australians, we really are keen to see as much snow as possible but my research so far has not really helped with whether the earlier or later trip will be nicer. I know that in May that some of the cable cars, funiculars and hotels are closed but unable to work out if this will affect this particular itinerary.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

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[rockoyster]

Reply 1 of 6 • 5 February 2018 at 4:45:16 #875644

G’day Outandabout and Welcome to MySwissAlps,

My wife and I visited Switzerland late May/early June last year.

There were plenty of spring flowers in Rigi.

There was snow higher up in the Jungfrau Region. There was snow on the alps to the south of the Glacier Express but not much on the ground even over the Oberalp Pass. Never made it to Zermatt but guess there would be snow at Gornergrat still in May/June.

Personally I’d go for June but if you really want to tramp about in the snow maybe the earlier day would be better. Even then I’d say St Moritz and Zermatt (on your itinerary) would be the only places that would be possible. With climate change nothing is that sure anymore. 😞

[User]

Reply 2 of 6 • 5 February 2018 at 9:05:50 #875645

Hi Outandabout,

Please refer to this thread for cable car maintenance: http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/gondolarail-access-to-mountains-in-aprilmay-2018.

Not mentioned in that post is that the Gornergrat railway will be operating in May 2018, but the cableway to Klein Matterhorn/Glacier Paradise will be closed for maintenance between Trockener Steg and Klein Matterhorn from 30 April to 11 May 2018.

[Arno]

Reply 3 of 6 • 5 February 2018 at 20:07:52 #875646

The information at http://www.myswissalps.com/be sttimetovisit may help you decide too.

[User]

Reply 4 of 6 • 5 February 2018 at 22:56:17 #875647

Thank you Chantal, that is good to know.

[User]

Reply 5 of 6 • 7 February 2018 at 0:12:07 #875648

Thank you, your replies have been very helpful.

We have decided to try to incorporate a gondola ride from Zermatt to Klein Matterhorn if it is open from Trockener Steg but if not then we will just go to Trockener Steg to take in the view and photos of course.

On the same day we will have a trip up to Gornergrat on the rail already organised as part of our tour and having looked at other threads in the forum, I understand that this is able to be done in the course of a full day.

We have been looking forward to doing this trip for a number of years and realise that a lot of planning is essential to get the most from our trip.

[User]

Reply 6 of 6 • 8 February 2018 at 3:10:22 #875649

G’Day Outand about-

June is generally a more pleasant time to visit Switzerland.

April is rainy in the lowlands where Spring is just beginning, and still pretty much the tail end of Winter at high altitudes. It is between seasons at altitude, nearer Winter than Spring, so a lot of mountain transport is shut down for maintenance.

Slowpoke