Itinerary for a 8 day stay in Switzerland

My husband and I will be arriving in Zurich on November 26th or 27th from Germany and would like to visit Lucerne, Bern, Montreaux, Zermatt and leave from Zermatt for Milan, Italy on Dec. 6. Of course if there is time the Jungfraujoch and or Mt. Titlis would be nice. How many days in each place do you suggest we allow to have a not too hectic schedule? Thank you for any suggestions. Hotel suggestion would also be welcome. We are not skiers.

Welcome to MySwissAlps, Bruce!

I suggest you pick two base towns in order to keep your itinerary low-paced. You could opt for or 4 days in Lucerne or Interlaken first, and then travel onto Zermatt. You can make a day trip to Bern from both Lucerne and Interlaken. Please see the Lucerne and Interlaken pages for day trips and hotel suggestions.

When moving on to Zermatt, you could do so using the scenic Golden Pass line between Interlaken, Spiez, Zweisimmen and Gstaad. This allows you to visit Montreux before heading for Zermatt. You would only have a few hours to do so though, if you want to get to Zermatt the same day. If you want to spend more time in Montreux, you should book an overnight stay there, but that might be more hectic over all. The Zermatt page provides further information, tips and hotel suggestions.

The timetable will assist you in your planning. Also, this guide on how to create your itinerary could be helpful.

A rail pass would come in handy. Depending on your exact travel schedule, you may want to look into an 8 day Swiss Saver Pass or a 3 or 4 day Swiss Saver Flexi Pass.

Does this get you started?

Hi Bruce,

Well, it's a personal choice in the end, so if this is not too hectic to you it's all fine. I would agree with Annika and rather cut down on the number of bases. Just an example: from Lucerne, you can easily visit Bern and Zurich as a day trip. The direct train from Lucerne via Schüpfheim to Bern is a really nice ride. Staying longer in one place gives you the flexibility of visiting towns when the weather is not that good and do trips into the mountains when it's sunny. Also it saves time as checking in and out of hotels and packing/unpacking takes quite some time. So I would stick to Lucerne, Vevey and Zermatt.