Planning 3 days in Switzerland, must sees?
A traveler named SuzieK is flying from Prague on November 2nd with two friends and plans to spend 3 days exploring Switzerland. She seeks advice on the best city to fly into to maximize their experience during this short trip.
- Fly into Zurich and use Lucerne as your base for easy access to nearby attractions like Mount Titlis and Lake Lucerne.
- Consider purchasing the Tell Pass for unlimited travel on local trains and attractions in the Lucerne area.
- If you want to see the Matterhorn, planning a trip to Zermatt is a great option.
- To experience Swiss villages, consider staying in the Jungfrau region for a couple of nights.
AI-generated summary-
I will be flying from Prague Nov 2nd with two friends after a river cruise and want to spend 3 days seeing Switzerland. Need help determining what city to fly into to accomplish seeing the best Switzerland has to offer in what little time we have.
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Hello SuzieK and Welcome to MySwissAlps,
There are many options depending on what appeals to you. Here’s a popular choice for such a short visit http://www.myswissalps.com/pl antrip/doityourself/sa mpleitineraries/glacie rexpresstour
Thanks for the warm welcome. It looks like the Gacier Express doesn’t run in Nov. we are thinking about flying into Zurich and taking the train to Lucerne, haven’t gotten any farther than that though.
Hmmmm. “There will be no Glacier Express trains running between 15.10. to 09.12.2018l.
Slight oversight on my part.
November is between seasons so can be tricky but trip to Jungfraujoch runs year round and the Matterhorn is worth a look if you arrive Zurich depart Geneva.
Hi Suziek
You can fly into Zurich and then base your accomodation in Lucerne which is 1 hour from Zurich.
for 3 days you can buy winter Tell pass which will give you unlimited free travelling on lake,train and buses. Mount Titlis , Mount Rigi and Mount Pilatus are all free with this pass which are mainly mountains with snow and snow related activities.
>> It looks like the Gacier Express doesn’t run in Nov.
That’s right, the summer season runs from 10 May until 14 October, then it doesn’t operate again until the winter season, which will probably start on 9 December 2018.
However, if you wanted to, you could travel the Glacier Express route on regional trains, on which reservations are not required. You will see the same scenery. I have attached some photos taken from a regional train along the Glacier Express route in November 2010.
Alpenrose
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Hi SuzieK,
You can use the Swiss railways timetable to plan out your trips.
If you fly into Zurich and out of Geneva as noted then a trip to Zermatt would be a great option (to see the Matterhorn). Also an overnight in Luzern and visiting one of the mountains nearby is the easiest option. You could also head to the Jungfrau region for a visit to the Jungfraujoch or Schilthorn.If you want to spend most of your time here visiting/seeing the mountains and you don’t want to move around too much then I would suggest spending all your time in the Jungfrau region and one of the villages in the area noted on that link.
November is a tricky time to visit as you are between seasons and you’ll find a fair bit of closures or just not great weather in general – but you never know!
Happy travels!
Sounds like Nov isn’t the best time to visit, but it’s our our only chance to see Switzerland. Since we only have 3-4 days, we would probably take the train from Zurich to Luzern. Making Luzern our base and doing day tours from there. Should we buy the Tell Pass,that way we can either do Mt. Titlis or Mt. Pilates or would it make more sense to buy the Swiss Travel Pass. We would like to visit a Swiss village maybe staying overnight. Suggestions? We will take the train back to Zurich to fly back home to the States. Would it be more cost effective to rent a car out of Zurich airport for 3-4 days and drive ourselves? Thanks for all of your help!
Read this before considering driving http://www.myswissalps.com/ca rversustrain.
Driving can work but if you stick to main towns/villages and mountains the train is probably more convenient – Rockoyster’s link explains more.
Luzern can work well as a base for sure and so would the Tell Pass if you stick to the area that it is valid for.
It covers maybe half the trip from Zurich airport to Luzern as well. If you want an alpine village type stay then I stick with my original suggestion of the Jungfrau region and staying in a town like Grindelwald or Wengen etc. maybe 2 nights out of 4 (or all 4) if you have the time.
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