3 days Swiss trip from Colombia late November

  • Removed user
    Participant
    72625 posts
    15 August 2018 at 18:24:04 #817901

    Hello,

    I have been reading this page and it’s really helpful, there are a lot of tips and useful information on it, but i love to ask questions so i need your advise.

    This is our first time we are going to be in Switzerland (me and my girlfriend, we are 22 and 27 and we are from Colombia, a tropical country…. going to the alps in winter 😛 ), we are going from Rome to Paris (we are leaving Rome on Monday 11/26 and i am planning to arrive to Paris on Friday 11/30 at night), we are planning to spend Monday 11/26 afternoon and night in Milan, so we would be able to explore your country and alps only from Tuesday 11/27 morning to Thursday night or Friday morning.

    The first question that i have is: Should i rent car or get a train pass? Based on your previous reviews you recommended train, but i don’t know which one would be better for us and i don’t know if getting the 3 days pass would be worth it, it’s to early to play with itineraries and fares but based on your experience you should be able to let me know what’s the best option.

    I know we don’t have a lot of time… but we would like to get the best experience and taste possible from your country, unfortunately we are going in the low season so i guess we won’t be able to do any winter sports (we have never done that before) and the Bernia and glazier express are not going to be working, but i know we can do some of their route with normal trains.

    I know that you guys don’t recommend going to Zurich when we don’t have a lot of time, can i ask why?

    We would like to do a little of everything, do some sighting of the alps, i think this can be done from one city/town to the other, am i correct? If so, which parts or routes would be the best ones for this purpose? We want to visit at least 2 beautiful towns, at least one Christmas market and a chocolate factory. We would like to try a winter sport, but i am not sure if the resorts would be open and which one would be a good options for us (this would be something totally new) and it’s expensive and we don’t have a lot of money for this purpose, is there a good and affordable mountain to enjoy the snow at a reasonable price? I don’t know if some hiking would be available at least something short and close to any town close by (spend maximum a couple of hours walking and enjoying the snow and the view). Finally we would like to visit a lake and take a boat ride if possible (and if we end up taking the swiss pass since it’s already included)

    Are the boat tours working this week, are they really worth it? can i take them just as transportation option from one side of a lake to the other?

    After all this introduction i would like to share my itinerary plans and i would like to get your honest feed back, would be possible, is it worth it, would you change something…

    Day 1:

    From Milan to Zurich, is it worth it to stop a couple of hours in Lugano or Locarno? Since we are short of time, we wan’t to go to a lake but i don’t know if we should stop here or go to Interlaken the following day? To be honest, i just want to go to Zurich to visit the FIFA and a Christmas market. If there is something else better than this and if it’s really worth it i definitely would prefer to go somewhere else (to the east for example…).

    Day 2:

    From Zurich to Luzern, i would like to spend this day in the lake and going to a close mountain (maybe to hike or do any winter sport)

    Day 3:

    From Luzern to Bern, i would like to spend the night in Bern but i can spend some hours in my way to Bern visiting Interlaken and the lake.

    Day 4:

    From Bern to Lausanne and Gineve

    I know that famous place like St Moritz in the east or Zermatt in the southwest are far from my route, but are they going to be open this week, would be worth to to spend a full day going there? Which routes would be the best ones for scenery from the train/car.

    Thank you and i will really appreciate your feed back and knowledge from your alps,

    Jorge Ferreira

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    Removed user
    Participant
    72625 posts
    16 August 2018 at 7:30:52 #894295

    Hi Jorge and welcome to MySwissAlps!

    As you’ve noted we recommend traveling by train in Switzerland. Whether getting a 3 day Swiss Travel Pass is worth it depends on your final itinerary but from the sound of it I would think it would be worth it for you.
    http://www.myswissalps.com/sw isstravelpass

    You’ll then need to just buy tickets from Milan to the Swiss border (Chiasso as you’ll probably go via Lugano on the way to Zurich) and then from Geneva to Paris. The links below can help you with tickets:

    It sounds like you know what you want and your itinerary seems fine. We often don’t recommend Zurich because most first-time visitors want to spend their time in the mountains but you clearly have things you want to do in Zurich (FIFA and Christmas markets) so it is a good option for you.

    Do note that hiking isn’t an option and neither is skiing in November. You may get lucky with snow to ski on at Mt. Titlis: http://www.myswissalps.com/ti tlis. It does have a glacier there so you can be in the snow at any time, but maybe not to ski on.

    To plan your train trips around the country you can use the Swiss railways timetable here: http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable

    All towns are “open” but some hotels and restaurants will be closed in November in St. Moritz and Zermatt (and smaller towns) so you may find not a lot to do there. At that time of year I’d stick to larger towns mostly.

    You may like to try to go to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn – but you’d have to cut out a day from your itinerary to make that happen. http://www.myswissalps.com/ze rmatt

    Arno
    Moderator
    15471 posts
    16 August 2018 at 15:30:04 #894296

    Hi Jorge,

    Here’s two more links you may find interesting:

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