Interlaken & Luzern trip report October 10-18
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My wife and I visited Switzerland from 10/10 thru 10/18/17.. Spent 3 days in Interlaken and 4 in Lucerne.
1. we bought the Swiss travel pass and used the trains extensively. Very easy to do- just walk on Be sure you are on time as the trains come when the schedule indicates and leave accordingly. Very efficient and clean. Most of the time someone checked our passes to make sure they were valid.
2. Stayed at the Hotel central continental in interlaken right across the street/river from the west station. Hotel was more than acceptable. Rooms were decent and we had a small balcony overlooking the river and the west station. Nice breakfast each morning. Would definitely stay there again if nothing more than for the location Price was about 125 usd per night.
3. did harder kulm, lake thun boat ride, schilthorn. Would recommend all 3. Harder kulm had a nice restaurant up top where we had a good lunch. Short funicular ride up to it and a viewing area. A relaxing spot to go on the first day after a long travel day from USA.
Schilthorn is definitely a must see in our opinion. Fun trip up and we did the thrill walk at Birg and then the whole james Bond thing at schilthorn. Really well done and a lot of fun to hang out up there. We ate lunch at the restaurant up there, though couldnt get a table on the rotating part so ate at the bar.Food was good and of course not cheap but had to say we did eat up there. A lot of people brought their own lunch and ate up there.
Boat ride on thun was nice but a bit long-2 plus hours.
our last day we walked around unterseen and wife did the paragliding thing. Quite the thrill for her. 200 USD which included a video and pix. It was worth it. If you want to do paragliding, what better place to do it, right?
2. Interlaken town is nothing special-pretty toursity.
3. took train from interlaken ost to luzern absolutely gorgeous ride.
4. We loved luzern. stayed right on the river near the chapel bridge. easy walk from the train station to our apartment. The old town is really fun to walk through and the restaurants on the river are fun to eat at in the evening.Walked the old wall dating from the 1300’s? which was really fun. Visited mt Pilatus which was worth the time, also did Burgenstock which was not. The fast elevator there to the very top is over priced but it was fun to hike to it. Did the lion monument which was easy to get to- it is impressive. Took a 1 hr boat ride around the lake with narration which was worth the time and money. did the picasso museum as well.
We had prefect weather every day and that no doubt had an impact on how we felt about the trip. Would love to go back, especially to Luzern. Relaxing place, easy to get around and not too big.
5. if you haven’t already discovered this, i would highly recommend watching a guy named Dennis callan’s videos on youtube. he takes tour groups over there quite a bit and he has very well done videos with good narration/explanations of sights, trains, places to eat, etc. We learned a ton watching them. and felt we were well prepared to use our time wisely as a result.
Also Rick Steves Switzerland was helpful preparation as well.
hope this is helpful to future travelers. If you like mountains, trains, boats, lakes,rivers, Switzerland is your disney world. it has it all.
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