[Anonymous]

17 November 2021 at 17:32:58 #826295

Hey All –

I’m heading to Switzerland next week (Nov 23-30) with my wife and 17 year old daughter. I knew we were chancing bad weather during that time and I’m afraid that we are not going to be lucky with weather with the highs around 1-4 degrees C most of our time there with 60% chance of rain/snow. So we will likely need to modify our itinerary somewhat to accommodate for this kind of weather. Here is what we have so far:

• 2 days in Luzern (explore old town, Mt Rigi)
• 2 days in Interlaken (Towns: Iseltwald, Lauterbrunnen/Murren, Brienz. Mountains: Shilthorn, Harder Klum. Activity: paragliding)
• 1 day in Zermatt (explore the town) …. skip completely if freezing and snowing the whole day?
• 1 day in Montreux (Chillon Castle, other ideas here?)
• 1 day in Bern (explore old town)

We purchased 8 day Swiss Travel Passes to get around. I’m not sure if Mt Rigi or anything in Interlaken can still be on the agenda with the weather, but would love to hear what thoughts you think would be worthwhile or not …. and if there are any other things to do in these cities or whether we should pivot to different cities (Gruyere, etc) that might be more interesting with this weather.

Thank you for any advice!

Cheers,

robliv

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[User]

Reply 1 of 4 • 18 November 2021 at 1:11:23 #937556

Don’t forget Switzerland is a small country with small (by world standards) cities. You must stop thinking of places – apart from the ‘big 6’ (Geneva, Basel, Bern, Zurich, Lausanne, Luzern) in Switzerland as ‘cities’ in the usual sense! Small tourist towns and villages which are fine in hot sunny summer conditions when you can ‘sit on a bench’ and just watch the world go by will present a different prospect if the weather is cold and drab.

Specific thoughts on your current plan:

2 days in Luzern (explore old town, Mt Rigi)

City of Luzern, like most cities should be OK in drab weather with just about enough to do (depending on size of city as above). Rigi entirely weather dependant, but bear in mind it can be drab for half a day and suddenly clear for the other half. Study the daily weather forecast carefully once near Luzern !

2 days in Interlaken (Towns: Iseltwald, Lauterbrunnen/Murren, Brienz. Mountains: Shilthorn, Harder Klum. Activity: paragliding)

Towns OK but all, especially Iseltwald, Lauterbrunnen and Brienz are very small places – unlikely to hold you interest if the weather is drab and museums etc are closed. Schilthorn, Harder Kulm, paragliding – good weather needed for views (pointless excursion if you will be in fog all visit)

1 day in Zermatt (explore the town) …. skip completely if freezing and snowing the whole day?

Zermatt village is actually quite nice and atmospheric in chill weather. Ancient streets are fascinating so if there are shops and a few cafes open it would be OK I think.

1 day in Montreux (Chillon Castle, other ideas here?)

Montreux is a busy small town so just about enough to do if combined with Chillon (eg Freddy Mercury memorial)

1 day in Bern (explore old town)

Bern is the capital city with many attractions so you would be fine here, especially as the central streets have covered arcades.

Gruyeres is very small but if the cheese museum is open that would take your time

[User]

Reply 2 of 4 • 18 November 2021 at 4:14:50 #937557

Thanks for your reply 1960man. Much appreciated. We’ll also be staying in Zurich the night before we fly out in the morning, so we’ll have a 1/2 day or so there. Very much looking forward to exploring as much as we can over the 8 days!

[User]

Reply 3 of 4 • 18 November 2021 at 17:15:32 #937558

Hi Robliv,

Weather in Switzerland can change in a minute – sometimes not even according to the forecasts. But even if it says rain for the day, it does not necessarily mean that it will rain all day long. So no worries, you can still have a wonderful holiday!

It’s worth checking the webcams on the mountains before you go up. I like the app of MeteoSwiss, it has great animation for clouds too (also for rain and temperature). I always check it in the early morning, if I am planning to go on a mountain trip.

If it is really raining that bad, you could visit museums. As you have a Swiss Travel Pass many museums are for free, see the list of them here: http://www.myswissalps.com/swisstravelpass/details.

In Lucerne there is an amazing museum, the Transport Museum – highly recommended, you can read more about it here: http://www.myswissalps.com/museumoftransport.

Then near Brienz, you’ll find the Ballenberg Swiss Open-Air Museum – also highly recommended if it rains not that bad.

Next to Montreux, there is Lausanne and the Olympic Museum and also its Cathedral is nice: http://www.myswissalps.com/lausanne.

And actually, you are so lucky, that many of the Christmas markets will be already open – as one of the best (in my opinion), the Christmas market in Montreux. My insider tip – if you go there while the rain is dripping, there will be fewer people so you can enjoy it more! 😉 You find more details about the Christmas Markets at http://www.myswissalps.com/activities/christmasmarkets.

Also, the cheese factory in Gruyeres is great: http://www.myswissalps.com/lamaisondugruyere and http://www.myswissalps.com/gruyeres. And close to if you’ll find a chocolate factory called Maison Cailler: http://www.myswissalps.com/maisoncailler. All of these are great in any bad weather.

I’ve also added some extra links to the previous posts, please have a look at those. For the cities you find them all at myswissalps.com, make sure to check the”What to do” page of them, like for Bern: http://www.myswissalps.com/bern/activities.

I hope this helps and you’ll have a lovely holiday!

Ildiko

More useful information:

http://www.myswissalps.com/weather/winter and https://www.myswissalps.com/activities/trips/snow-mountains/ and http://www.myswissalps.com/activities/winter

[Rels]

Reply 4 of 4 • 18 November 2021 at 21:01:10 #937559

Hi robliv,

We travelled May/June, so can’t speak for November weather, but below are links to some of my trip reports covering Montreux, Gruyeres, Luzern, and some of the things we did. We had the full Swiss Travel Pass, so if the weather wasn’t great for mountain excursions, we just jumped on a train to somewhere else. Check other trips reports in the Forum section too, there’s lots of great information on there.

http://www.myswissalps.com/forum/topic/trip-report-day-15-21-locarno-to-montreux

http://www.myswissalps.com/forum/topic/final-trip-report-day-29-36-wengen-to-zurich

Happy travels,

Narelle