Paris & Swiss itinerary for 14 days in April
A traveler is planning a 14-day trip to Switzerland and Paris in mid to late April with their partner and is unsure about the weather and activity availability during this time. They are mainly looking for sightseeing opportunities and want to avoid rain, especially for visiting mountain peaks, but are reconsidering their itinerary based on the mixed opinions they've encountered online.
- Consider traveling in late May or early September for generally better weather and more activities available.
- The Swiss Travel Pass is useful for ease of travel and should be checked for validity on your chosen routes.
- For Jungfraujoch, despite potential weather issues, the train operates year-round, but checking weather forecasts is essential before heading out.
- Make sure to plan your itinerary to optimize scenic travel, as some mountain excursions may be closed in April.
- Using the SBB Mobile app can help with train schedules and ticket purchases for a smooth travel experience.
AI-generated summary-
Hi everyone,
I am planning a 14 days trip to visit Switzerland/Paris with my partner during mid to end April, however we are reconsidering our options due to mixed responses over the internet to the best time to visit. We saw mentions about April not being a preferred month, as some of the train services are not operating and towns being dull without much activities due to the season transition. We are aware June/July will be summer so crowd is expected, and the next best season will be in September.
Anyhow, our goals are mainly for sightseeing (including the peaks), and we want to avoid rainy seasons so that views are clear and able to proceed with the sightseeing. We are not so into hiking (perhaps a short one), thus would like to hear from you guys whether the weather in April does affect our goals. I have planned an preliminary itinerary for your review, would appreciate if anyone can advice to make sure this is the route which is on the way to visit Paris (We are flying into Zurich for a start), then fly back Zurich from Paris.
Day 1 – Zurich
Day 2/3 – Lucern
Day 4/5/6 – Interlaken / Grindelwald / Wengen / Mullen
– Side note: thought of doing paragliding from Jungfrau, are they open in Mid – End April?
– Read about riding Glacier Express to view the sceneries – should I just leave a day for this?
Day 7/8 – Zermatt
Day 9/10 – Vevey/Montreux
Day 11/12 – Geneva to Paris / Paris Trip
Day 13 – Fly to Zurich/ Roam around Zurich
Day 14 – Zurich back home
As this is my first time visiting, hoping anyone can advice and feedback acordingly. Thank you!
-
Hello Bryan and Welcome to MySwissAlps,
I would choose September well ahead of April any day. The weather is generally great, the summer crowds have gone but everything is still operating. Montreux in April would be dull by comparison And I doubt paragliding would be an option.
You will see more snow on the peaks in June/July though.
Forget the Glacier Express. It does not fit with your itinerary. It only makes sense in your case if you were going east from Zermatt.
I would train back from Paris to Zurich. It will be much more relaxing and comfortable than flying.
See http://www.myswissalps.com/tr aintickets/france.
Based on your personal itinerary you should read “How to choose the best travel pass” (http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses/prac tical/chooserailpass), download the handy spreadsheet calculator and do the math. The spreadsheet also includes links to the “Where it’s valid” page for all available passes. Be sure to check those pages for each pass you are considering. Study the map AND read all the text on those pages to fully understand what is covered by the respective pass.
I’m a big fan of the SBB Mobile app (bit.ly/2ICIUHi) to check train, bus, boat and cableway timetables, find fares* and buy tickets on-line if required. In the unlikely event you don’t have a device capable of running the app then you can use the timetable on the SBB website (bit.ly/2HH1U7B). If you are not familiar with using the timetable it will pay to first read the instructions at http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable.
* The SBB website shows half-fare prices by default, the mobile app allows you to nominate whether to show full or half-fares (by editing the passenger details in settings) and is also smart enough to offer you the Saver Day Pass (http://www.myswissalps.com/sa verdaypass) if that offers the best fare. The app also show a platform map (at least at the larger stations) to help you make connections.
Happy planning.
I’m not sure I agree about April
The attached photos were taken on my trip in early April 2019
we sat on picnic benches and on our chalet balcony (at 1200 metres altitude) most days
<<“
I’m not sure I agree about April”>>
How about 2000 meters?
Of course, Bern, at around 500 meters, is great in the Spring.
Slowpoke
Hi rockoyster,
Thanks for the detailed explaination, it is definitely very useful and aid with my planning. I have a quick discussion with my partner and chances are we might still proceed to visit Switzerland Mid – End April. Or, do you recommend us to go during May if we are looking around this timeframe?
In this case, will visiting Jungfraujoch an issue beside the fact that weather conditions might lead to poor visibility? Other than this, will the cable service to Jungfraujoch be affected during this season?
As you mentioned, Montreux in April would be dull, do you recommend any other places/activities that can fit the 2 days in my schedule, or stay extra days in other places in the schedule? Is my itinerary travelling to Geneva and depart to Paris from there the recommended route?
Hi Bryan,
As you can see from the other comments the weather will be the weather. You may travel in April or May and strike perfect weather.
If you are intent on travelling at that time of year I think running over into May will let spring advance a bit further. Whatever you do you will have a good time in Switzerland.
Getting to Jungfraujoch is trains all the way. There are no cable cars involved. It runs all year round.
If you look at http://www.myswissalps.com/ju ngfrauregion/activitie s and follow some of the links then you will find (for example) on the page for Schilthorn that under the Route tab you will see dates of operation. Same applies to most mountain excursions.
Perhaps I was a bit harsh on Montreux. Perhaps not quite as bright as at other times of the year.
You can get a TGV train from Geneva, Lausanne or Bern or Basel depending on what works best for your interests. If you train back from Paris to Zurich you will come via Basel.
Hi Bryan,
I think travelling to Switzerland in April is fine if your focus is just sightseeing and less hiking as most of the trails on mountain would still be inaccessible at this time of the year. The train going up to Jungraujoch (http://www.myswissalps.com/ju ngfraujoch) operates all year round, as mentioned by rockoyster, but you should check the weather forecast and mountain webcam before you go to avoid disappointment in case it gets too cloudy or foggy up there to see anything.
For information on paragliding, you can check this out (paragliding from Interlaken), or this (paragliding over Lauterbrunnen).
If you wish to travel on the Glacier Express, you might need to reconsider your itinerary, as pointed out in an earlier comment. For more information about the Glacier Express, please see this link: http://www.myswissalps.com/gl acierexpress
Below, a few more useful links for the rest of your trip:
- Zurich: http://www.myswissalps.com/zurich
- Lucerne: http://www.myswissalps.com/lucerne
- Montreux: http://www.myswissalps.com/montreux
- Interlaken: http://www.myswissalps.com/interlaken
- Grindelwald: http://www.myswissalps.com/grindelwald
- Wengen: http://www.myswissalps.com/wengen
- Mürren: http://www.myswissalps.com/murren
- Zermatt: http://www.myswissalps.com/zermatt
- Geneva: http://www.myswissalps.com/geneva
Regards,
Anna
Hi Bryan-
Weather, travel conditions, hiking or skiing conditions, and altitude determine what is operating and what it is possible to do. Altitude is the critical determinant. Weather is the second
As Rockoyster noted – <<“As you can see from the other comments the weather will be the weather.
You may travel in April or May and strike perfect weather.”>>
Check the links a this page:
http://www.myswissalps.com/ab outswitzerland/nature
April can be rainy and cloudy everywhere, and May will be better. I visit Switzerland every year in late May and in early September. In the Spring, I visit places around the country at lower altitudes. Geneva, Luzern, the Emmental, the Three Lakes region, St. Gall, the Bündner Herschaft (wine region around Maienfeld) and explore various places that I have not visited before. I can hike. The countryside in May is very nice for easy walks, although the high Alps are only visible periodically in the distance. Few tourists, except sometimes in May in Luzern. The major tourist impact all around the country starts in mid to late June, but does not become severe until the very end of June
I don’t ski, and I like to hike…easy hikes.
So, from mid-April until early June, I don’t visit the high Alps near the Jungfrau. Skiing ends in early April, and hiking at any but the lowest altitude trails is not possible, until, on average June 15th. (Zermatt may have skiing a bit later due to higher altitudes). No skiers; no hikers, so various cableways shut down for maintenance, as do many hotels and restaurants. Some hotels and restaurants remain open.
However, the cograil train to Jungfraujoch runs every day of the year. You can also visit Schilthorn, if you avid the April maintenance shutdown, as noted in this link:
http://www.myswissalps.com/sc hilthorn
Look under:
http://www.myswissalps.com/sc hilthorn/gettingthere
If you do visit the area for a few days of sight seeing, you can see some impressive scenery.
The biggest risk is that there will be cloudy weather. Those high Alpine trips are not much good if you can’t see anything. The normal advice is to stay in the area a few days, to increase chances of clear weather. Watch the webcams, check with local tourist information offices.
http://www.interlaken.ch/en/i nfo-service/tourist-offices-in-the-region
The weather comes in layers. Valleys may be cloudy, with sun above the cloud deck. And, some of the lower altitude parts of the Bernese Oberland...Thun, Brienz, (and Bern itself) offer low altitude options.
http://www.myswissalps.com/be rneseoberland
All that said, I avoid April and strive for late May. It won’t make much if any difference in the higher Alps, and the rest of the country is really nice in later Spring. However, in 2014, I had to go in April, due to a series of family events. In Mid-April there was a marvelous dry sunny period of about 10-14 days , all throughout Switzerland. That would never have be expected. Perhaps not exactly unprecedented, but it could not be planned for. (And, the opposite happens…once we went in early June and had 2 1/2 weeks of cloudy days. There were 2 meters of non-skiable snow on the trail near Kleine Scheidegg, and clouds.
The attached panorama from the Emmental was taken above Sumiswald, on about April 15th in 2014 at about 700 meters altitude. The clear weather lets the Alps show off. Looking in the foreground, at a round 650 meters, you can see that the trees are blossoming, but the grass has not greened up except in the lowest places.
That was close to a once in lifetime opportunity.
You might consider the train from Paris to Zürich.
http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable
Four hours and 20 minutes, center city to center city, every hour at xx22. Longer times with other frequent connections in between.
Slowpoke
Attachments:
Thanks all for the input. Now that I’m considering September, can you advise on the recommended dates to go? My partner is worried that the weather might be warm, as she saw post of tourist wearing shorts (as if the weather is warm).
Thus, will greatly appreciate some dates in September where the weather is cooling (around 20 degrees or lesser) with all facilities still open and great clarity views to the mountains (Zermatt/Jungfraujoch) that will be awesome. Not doing skiing though.
Thank you!
Hello Bryan,
Good decision.
My wife and I arrived in Zurich on 16 September this year. The weather was lovely (we don’t like hot weather; ie anything much over 22C). It was low 20s in Thun and cooler in the mountains.
I am progressively putting up some pictures of our trip at http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/a-week-in-thun.
After Thun we went to Montreux for a week then Neuchâtel as we had not previously visited the French side. The weather was pretty good the whole time we were there and got a little cooler as we moved into October. But still very pleasant.
Hi Bryan-
I arrived in Switzerland on the 11th and left on the 26th of this September this year. During that time there were some warm days at lower altitudes. Overall, over that time period, the temperatures decreased a bit, but day to day variations were greater than the average decrease. The weather was dry and at least partially sunny on almost every day.
As Rockoyster notes, we had excellent weather. I brought a pair of shorts, but did not wear them. I recall that on some of those days, the temperature in Zürich or Luzern might have reached 23 Celsius or more, at low humidity. The humidity was generally low…although we did have a bit of rain, sometimes at night.low, so I was comfortable in blue jeans everywhere. I saw some people wearing shorts. I have seen some people (rarely) wearing shorts at 18 degrees or even substantially less. Depends on what you are used to.
However, as noted before -<<“Weather, travel conditions, hiking or skiing conditions, and altitude
determine what is operating and what it is possible to do. Altitude is
the critical determinant……”>>
There is a rule of thumb that on a clear day, temperature decreases by 6.5 deg. Celsius for every 1000 meters of increasing altitude. As with all such simple rules, it is not precise.
( For example, sometimes there is a warm dry wind, the “föhn, ” that is especially noticeable in the mountains. From Wiki:
<<“A föhn or foehn (UK: /fɜːn/,[2][3] US: /feɪn/) is a type of dry, warm, down-slope wind that occurs in the lee (downwind side) of a mountain range.
Föhn can be initiated when deep low-pressure systems move into Europe, drawing moist Mediterranean air over the Alps.
It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (see orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic lapse rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes. Föhn winds can raise temperatures by as much as 14 °C (25 °F)[4] in just a matter of hours. Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria enjoy a warmer climate due to the Föhn, as moist winds off the Mediterranean Sea blow over the Alps.”>>
Luzern is at 435 meters, Zürich at 408 meters, Wengen at 1274 and Männlichen at 2229. By that estimate, if you find the temperature in Zürich to be 20 degrees, at Männlichen it will be around 8 degrees. However, the sunlight is intense at high altitude, and It may feel warmer than the thermometer would indicate. Thus, you may see hikers in shorts and shirtsleeves in the Alps on days that don’t have a warm thermometer reading.
So, ask your partner in what month of the year and at what altitude those people were wearing shorts.
And, look at the temperature with any weather program at Zürich and Luzern and compare it at the same time in Wengen, Mürren ( not “Mullen”), Kleine Scheidegg, Zermatt and Jungfraujoch.
You should be clear, however, that there are no promises for clear weather. Sorry. ;-(
On average, September and early October are best, as Rockoyster observed, and I routinely find as well.
However, there is a saying that you cannot predict the weather in the Alps more than few hours in advance, and it certainly can change very quickly. Anywhere in Switzerland, no forecast is reliable more than about 3 days in advance unless there is a broad general pattern of weather over all of Central Europe. Even then, Switzerland has a lot of microclimates. And, especially in the high Alps, 24 hours is about the limit for reliability. There was a bit of snow at Männlichen in August a couple of years ago, and early in this past September, snow closed trails above Mürren for a couple of days before it disappeared.
Slowpoke
Thanks for the detailed explanation. We are wondering if it is better to go end Sept to early Oct as the weather gets colder (just to minimise any chances of warmness during early mid Sept), with all facilities still readily available and chance to experience early Autumn.
Any thoughts on this?
Hi Bryan-
<<“to early Oct as the weather gets colder (just to minimise any chances of
warmness during early mid Sept), with all facilities still readily
available and chance to experience early Autumn.”>>
Yes, but change one word:
<<“to early Oct as the weather gets colder (just to minimise any chances of
warmness during early mid Sept), with most facilities still readily
available and chance to experience early Autumn.”>>
One example – my favorite hotel in Wengen, the Bellevue, finishes its season on September 26th.
Some lakeboat schedules cut back some on September 7th, and change to Winter season on October 19th.
http://www.lakelucerne.ch/en/ timetable-fares/timetable/
Others remain open.
At lower altitudes, there will generally not be seasonal closings at that time.
Some lakeboat schedules cut back some on September 7th, and change to Winter season on October 19th.
http://www.lakelucerne.ch/en/ timetable-fares/timetable/
Slowpoke
Hi Slowpoke, thanks for the pointers, I don’t think the lakeboat schedules will be of great impact since is not completely shut down.
We are now looking at 21st Sep – 5th Oct, I see that it is a public holiday on 20th Sep 2020 (Sun), the Federal Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer Sun/Swiss Federal Fast. I wonder if this has any impact (more crowd due to holidays, will this public holiday be carried forward to Monday or last for few days?)
<<“Hi Slowpoke, thanks for the pointers, I don’t think the lakeboat
schedules will be of great impact since is not completely shut down.”>>
I was offering them as a general example of what happens in late September, early October.
<<“I see that it is a public holiday on 20th Sep 2020 (Sun), the Federal
Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer Sun/Swiss Federal Fast. I
wonder if this has any impact (more crowd due to holidays, will this
public holiday be carried forward to Monday or last for few days?)”>>
That was discussed here a few weeks ago. Can’t find the thread a the moment.
Most stores are closed on Sunday, anyway. Impact varies by canton. Minimal in tourist regions, if I recall correctly. More impact in the Suisse Romand.
I’d not worry about it
Slowpoke
It will not carry over.
Hi Bryan,
I think those dates are great. Most of the mountain railways and cable car services remain operational until the 2nd week of October.
Never realised Sept 20 is a public holiday. It’s probably not a major one, and won’t impact much on crowd turnout as much as as the weather. As Slowpoke mentioned, most stores are closed on Sundays anyways, but if you need to do some Sunday shopping, the shops at the big train stations such as Zurich, Bern, Lucerne and Basel are open daily.
Regards,
Anna
Hi Bryan,
Pretty sure we were in Bern for this year’s “Federal Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer“. It just seemed like a normal Sunday. Certainly the following Monday seemed entirely normal.
See flic.kr/s/aHsmJFCJnG.
Actually I’m wrong. Just looked it up and this year it was 15 September which was the Sunday before we landed in Zurich. On the Monday we arrived everything seemed entirely normal.
Monday (Lundi du Jeûne) is a public holiday in the canton of Vaud and unofficial holiday in the canton of Neuchâtel.
I stayedin Brienz on the night of the 14th, drove to Lauterbrunnen on AM 15th (Sunday) , stayed 2 nights at the Hotel Bellevue, observing the beautiful views, and left Tuesday AM. I noticed nothing different or unusual about any of the tourist services, stores, hotels, restaurants. I did not know that it was a holiday.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Public_holidays_in_Swi tzerland
http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/september-swiss-holidays-what-to-expect
Slowpoke
The Federal day of Thanksgiving is a religious observance, rather than a public holiday in the normal sense. It is a Sunday so it will hardly make anything different that wouldn’t be different on a normal Sunday.
The only public holiday related to it is the Monday following which is a public holiday in Vaud canton (which would possibly mean shops closed in Lausanne, Montreux etc)
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