Please advice on my 5days 4nights trip.

Hie,

We are planning for a 5days 4 nights trip (early May) to Switzerland with a 2 yrs old girl.

Have a few queries here and would like to seek your advise and what is the most appropriate Swiss pass to purchase.

Day 1, We will arrive at Geneva Airport around 11.40am and we plan to travel to Interlaken by train. Can I use my Swiss pass?

Day 2, we plan to go to Jungfraujoch and Grindelwald town and overnight at Interlaken

Day 3, we plan to go to Lucern by train. Can I use my Swiss pass?
Upon arrival at Lucern, we plan to visit Mt Pilatus and Lake Lucern (overnight at Lucern). Will it be too rush?

Day 4, we plan to go to Basel because our flight to Amsterdam on the next day is 6.20am, so we thought that it would be better for us to stay near Basel Airport.

Please advise us on our Swiss pass usage and itinerary. Appreciate your kind feedback.

Thank you.

Hi KellyHeng,

Welcome to MySwissAlps! A 4-day Swiss Saver Pass would be an excellent choice for your plans. All trains are covered, so you do not need to get tickets, and trips to mountain tops are discounted. You can visit the Swiss Pass page for information about how the pass works, a map of what's covered, prices and more.

You can visit the Pilatus and do a boat trip on day 3 if you don't mind that it will be quite a long day. If you settle for a short boat trip you can even combine it by taking a boat from Lucerne to Alpnachstad and take the cogwheel train to the summit there. However, you need to check whether the cogwheel train is operational as it will open up after Winter around the time you're there. The exact date depends on the weather.

On day 4 you have plenty of time to spend the morning in the Jungfrau region or pay a visit to Bern along the way to Basel. Hotels in Basel are listed here, and airport hotels are here.

For Day 3, our initial plan, we plan to visit Lucern --> Mt Pilatus and Lake Lucern and then stay overnight . then in Day 4, we check in to Basel as our flight is 6:20am the next morning (Day 5).

You have suggested that we can spend the morning (Day 4) in Jungfraun region - does this mean that we don't stay overnight in Lucern? Just make it a day trip to Mt.Pilatus and Lake Lucern and back to Interlaken that night itself? WIll this be too hectic in a day (interlaken --> Lucern ..> Interlaken)?If we were to stay in interlaken after Mt Pilatus visit, then day 4 to Bern before checking in to Basel, is there anyway that we can 'park' our luggages in Bern? I can't imagine lugging luggages around Bern town? Any suggestion? Or it is better if we go straight to Basel and visit Basel town instead?

Thank you once again.

Hi KellyHeng,

Sorry, I switched your base towns of day 3 and 4 by mistake when I made that suggestion. What I meant to say is this: you can either spend the morning in or around your base town, or travel towards Basel and visit a town along the way. In your case this means: either spend the morning in/around Lucerne, or start traveling and visit Zurich along the way, or indeed spend time in Basel. Even visiting Bern would be possible, it just takes a bit more travel time. The train ride from Lucerne via Schüpfheim to Bern is really nice. All larger stations including Bern, Basel and Zurich, have luggage lockers. The timetable shows all travel options.

I hope my corrected suggestion makes sense!

Hie Annika,

We are scheduled to arrive at Interlaken around 4pm,so we are planning to do boat tour either Lake Thun or Lake Brienz when we are in Interlaken. Wonder if we still have time for that in the evening?

Can you advise us which lake tour will be a better one as we do not have enough time for both.

It seems that i can't find the boat time table in English. Could you please guide me on this?

Thank you.

Hi KellyHeng,

Did you find our Lake Brienz and Lake Thun pages? That's where you can find information, including pictures and links to the timetables. There won't be boats after 4pm, so you best schedule that on another day. Things close down pretty early in the mountains (in general), especially outside of the high seasons, which includes May.

Both lakes are beautiful. Lake Brienz is a bit smaller and the mountains rise up pretty steep. The view from Lake Thun is wider. You really can't go wrong with either lake.

Thank you so much for your explanation about Laken Brienz and Lake Thun. Since they are close after 4pm maybe we should opt for another plan.

I plan to visit Jungfraujoch on the next day via Interlaken to Jungfraujoch via Lauterbrunnen and and from Jungfraujoch to Interlaken via Grindelwald

Kindly please advise on my queries below regarding my Jungfraujoch trip.

1. I'll be staying near Interlaken West station, can i start my trip from Interlaken West? Do I need to alight at Interlaken OST station?

2. I understand that with swiss pass, there are some discounted train tickets. How much discount do I entitle with swiss pass?

3. With swiss pass, am I right to say that I do not need to pay for my travel from Interlaken up to Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen/Wengen but I do need to pay for the rest of my trip to Jungfraujoch at certain discounted price?

Please advice.

Thank you so much.

Hi Kelly,

1. You can take a train or bus from West to Ost, or you can walk to Ost. See here for details.

2./3. You will get a 25% discount on the remainder of the trip. That ticket can be purchased at any of the stations in Interlaken. See the map you can download from the Swiss Pass page for how much discount you get for any cable car/train etc. in Switzerland.