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We will be traveling to Switzerland at the end of May next year. I have secured some lodging reservations for places where I knew I could get a good rate really early but can cancel or change if necessary. We will arrive Zurich 06:15 and plan to spend the day and spend one night. I don’t want to be in the city too long. I’m coming for the Alps experience! Next day we will leave early for Zermatt to spend two nights and a little bit of the third day. From there we have reservations for 3 nights in Lauterbrunnen and then move to Montreux for 2 nights. These stops are important to me. From Montreux we can easily visit the Olympic Museum in Lausanne (important stop) and take the boat across to Evian, France. I am now torn about the next 2 or 3 nights. We are not on a specific time schedule, so we can add a night or two more if we want to. I want to see Luzern, but I also want to see the area around Bern and possibly get to Gruyère. We plan on a total of approximately 10 days, but are somewhat flexible, so we have 2 or 3 nights to fill in at the end. What would you do? Thanks!
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” Zurich … Zermatt to spend two nights and a little bit of the third day. …Lauterbrunnen … and then move to Montreux for 2 nights. … Lausanne / Evian, France…”
Unless you want to go backwards and forwards for a reason, you are doing the things in the wrong order. The obvious order (advice from someone who is 59 today and has spent some time travelling in Switzerland in nearly all of those 59 years…) is Zurich – Luzern – Lauterbrunnen – Zermatt – Montreux. “the area around Bern ” includes Lauterbrunnen and Bern city itself can be reached from Lauterbrunnen in just over 1 hour 20 minutes. Gruyères can be reached easily from Montreux (Bern can also be visited from a Montreux base)
Well, thank you. That’s good advice. In examining the SBB rail map, it looked like a better option to go to Zermatt first after Zurich, since Zermatt is so out of the way. But those of you with experience know better than I and I thank you for that. It’s a daunting (but exciting) task planning this trip!
And the order really isn’t obvious unless you’ve done it . 😉
Hi Timbertrail,
I second 1960man’s suggestion on the order. It works better logistically, and also you will be working your way up from lower to higher altitudes, at least until Zermatt. That’s not a must, but it does add to the experience if you can do it that way.
Have fun!
Check the train timetables for visiting the mountains around Lauterbrunnen. Everything takes a lot longer than you think so plan accordingly. Unlike the rest of Switzerland there is often a half hour to 45 min wait between trains/cograil/cablecars and the cablecars can be full and you might have to wait for the next one.
Zermatt is a little easier. Even if you have the Swiss travel pass look into a 2 day mountain pass in Zermatt. It covers everything on the mountain for 132 CHF (with the STP) unlimited times and was worth it for us but we had pretty good weather. Gornergrat can be beautifully sunny while the Matterhorn glacier paradise is in cloud and rain.
We will not be spending time in Zurich at all. We are overnighting there, that is all.
I’ve finally got our itinerary down for our 10-11 days
Arrive Zurich 6:15 a.m. – get locker for luggage and spend the day in the city sightseeing and then travel to Lucerne for 3 nights, then Lauterbrunnen for 3 nights, Montreux for 2 nights and Zermatt for 2 nights. One more night, maybe, in Zurich before flying back to the US. We’ve managed to book some great spots with great reviews for a grand total of only a little over $1,000 US for the 10 nights. It took a great deal of time to look at many different lodging sites and options, check map locations and read reviews, but it paid off. We found the best deals on Booking.com and Air BnB and the one in Montreux on VRBO. One of our requirements is that we are not in a hotel for more than two nights. We only booked one hotel. The rest are apartments or rooming houses with either a kitchen or access to refrigerator, etc.
Thank you all for your suggestions.
Hi Timbertrail! Good to hear you’ve been able to finalize your plans. You sure put a lot of effort into your preparations, and it sounds like you’ve found good accommodation options in the end. Are you all set now? And did you pick a rail pass (myswissalps.com/train/ ticketspasses/practica l/chooserailpass)? Let us know if you have further questions!
Thanks Annika! We will most likely get the Swiss Travel Passes for 15 days even though we will not be there to use them the last few days. It’s cheaper than buying 8 day passes and adding extra 3 day passes. And I’ve also decided to add the extra night in Chur after taking the Glacier Express from Zermatt. Then we’ll be able to go directly from Chur to Zurich airport for our outbound flight on the last day as it will likely be an afternoon flight.
Now my problem is this… how am I ever going to be able to wait a whole year almost for this trip!!! 😉
That’s a well known problem 🙂 I can only suggest to keep visiting our website, watch pictures (http://www.myswissalps.com/ph otos) and fine-tune your plans. I am sure you will end up with enough plans for multiple holidays!
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