The Ultimate 17-Day Swiss Itinerary for Scenic Train Rides and Mountain Excursions

Dreaming of the perfect Switzerland vacation but feeling overwhelmed by train schedules, hotel options, and which destinations are worth your time? If panoramic views, charming villages, and stress-free Alps travel are on your wishlist, this is for you.

In this episode, we follow Alan and Jackie Freshwater’s 17-night adventure across Switzerland, where they combined independent exploration with the ease of a pre-arranged rail package. From their first-class rides on the Glacier Express and other panoramic trains to strolling through the car-free streets of Zermatt, their Swiss itinerary is packed with breathtaking scenery and amazing experiences..

You’ll hear exactly how they navigated Switzerland travel without stress, including using luggage transfer services, timing their mountain excursions for the best weather, and adding extra nights to truly enjoy each destination. Their journey showcases the highlights of Swiss mountains and lakes, including stops in Lucerne, Interlaken, Montreux, Zermatt, St. Moritz, and Lugano.

Along the way, they share firsthand Swiss travel tips for making the most of your time on Switzerland’s iconic trains, from flexible day trips to must-see routes for scenic train rides.

Whether you’re planning your own Zermatt travel, considering a multi-city itinerary, or just gathering ideas for your dream Switzerland vacation, this episode will help you travel smarter, enjoy more, and soak in every alpine view!

Safe travels,

Carolyn

👉 Show notes - Episode 146

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Transcript

Carolyn Schönafinger: Welcome to the Holidays to Switzerland podcast. If you're planning a trip to Switzerland, this is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Carolyn Schönafinger, the founder of holidaystoswitzerland.com. In each episode, my expert guests and I share practical tips to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland. You'll get helpful advice about traveling around Switzerland and hear about the most popular destinations, as well as some hidden gems. We'll introduce you to plenty of wonderful experiences that you can enjoy as part of your Swiss vacation. Each episode is packed with expert tips, itinerary ideas, and inspiration to help make your Swiss Vacation planning easy. So let's dive in.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Gruezi, welcome to this week's episode. I'm really looking forward to sharing today's episode with you, as I'm chatting with my friends Alan and Jackie about their recent trip to Switzerland. I've known Jackie and Alan for quite a few years now, and like me, they love to travel. Alan and my husband worked in the same industry for many years, and we would meet up every year at conferences and spend time together in some amazing locations. Jackie and Alan met up again with my husband and I in our hometown last year, and it was then that they told me that they were planning to visit Switzerland, but they weren't sure what they should see and do and how they should actually go about organizing their trip.

Carolyn Schönafinger: For most of their trips, Jackie and Alan make all the bookings themselves, and they mostly travel independently, but this trip was a little different. They'd done a bit of initial research about Switzerland and knew they wanted to travel around by train, but they were just overwhelmed with all the logistics and weren't sure exactly where to start. I suggested they have a look at the rail packages offered by Switzerland Travel Centre, Switzerland's largest tour operator and a partner of Holidays to Switzerland. They did just that and decided that was the perfect fit for them.

Carolyn Schönafinger: They could still travel independently, but they didn't have to worry about the hassle of planning an itinerary, checking train schedules, choosing the cheapest Rail Pass or tickets to buy, or making seat reservations on those premium panoramic trains. Everything was done on their behalf, and by using the Holidays to Switzerland promo code, HTSWISS, when they booked online, Jackie and Alan also benefited from a 5% discount. They've kindly agreed to share their Swiss travel experiences with us today. Hello, Alan and Jackie, welcome to the Holidays to Switzerland podcast. Thank you very much for joining me today. Could you tell our listeners a bit about yourselves and your travel experience was? This your first time to Switzerland. Okay, hi. How are you? Carolyn, very well. Thank you, Alan.

Alan Freshwater: So we're a little bit about ourselves. Well, we're both 65, both retired in the last couple of years, and part of our retirement planning is to do some travel. And we've done quite a bit of travel in the last decade around Europe, Asia, and North America, but hadn't really done Switzerland in any rigor at all. I think Jackie might have been there twice.

Jackie Freshwater: Well, I've been there once, but it was just very briefly. So when we were going to Europe, Alan particularly, we wanted to do Switzerland in a little bit more detail and just take our time with it and really experience it, didn't we?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, I think I'd only ever spent one night there, sort of traveling through from Germany to Italy. So it was something that I wanted to sort of a gap I wanted to fill. So that was the plan.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, good. And I know that you're both, as you said, you've traveled quite a bit, and you've seen quite a lot of Europe. What is it about Switzerland that made you really want to go and explore it a bit more in depth?

Alan Freshwater: I think for me, it was the mountains and knowing that the Alps run straight through the middle of it. The one day that I had spent there going through it before was on another trip, and, you know, I could see that it was spectacular, but it was the middle of winter that trip, and it was only one day. And I thought, I've got to come back here at another time and do it more properly. And of course, we had to wait for retirement to come around, for that to happen. But here we are.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Fantastic. So could you tell everyone when was your trip? What month were you in Switzerland?

Jackie Freshwater: Well, our trip to Switzerland was from the 1st of June, and we ended up doing 17 nights, so it went from the 1st of June till the 17th of June.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, great. Now I know because we're friends, and we've actually traveled a little bit together on other occasions, but I know that you're quite independent travelers, and prior to actually getting to Switzerland on this trip, you rented a car and you drove around in the UK. So why did you decide, when it came to Switzerland, to book a rail package, to have someone make the arrangements on your behalf?

Jackie Freshwater: So you are 100% right. We do like to travel independently, like even before the Switzerland, as you said, we did a month just driving ourselves around England and Scotland, which we loved. So I guess the rail package, from doing a little bit of research on it, rail and train seemed to be the best way to get around Switzerland. We know the rail system is excellent, and so to get to all the destinations that we wanted to go to, rail seemed to be the way to go. And booking through a package, it sort of did take the worry out of it a little bit, and having the flexibility that we did have with it, sort of made up our mind that would be a good way to go.

Alan Freshwater: I think, I think also I had, I did all the driving in England and Scotland, and that was over 2000 miles. So I was ready for a break and ready to sit and let someone else drive.

Carolyn Schönafinger: That sounds like a good plan. So who did you make the booking through the rail package? Who was that booked through and what part of the arrangements did they make on your behalf?

Jackie Freshwater: Yeah, we booked through the Switzerland Travel Centre. Having a look at the tours, we decided on the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland, the classic. So that was the one that we actually booked. So the company did do all the rail tickets for us and for the ones that were necessary, they booked the seats on the trains that were needed. So they definitely had more of an idea like going from Zurich to Lucerne. They go every half an hour. So they just basically we had the ticket to get the train anytime we wanted. So we had the flexibility to do that anytime. But the ones that get really busy and booked out, they actually had our feed, our, you know, it was first class, and we had our cabin, our coach and everything. So they managed all that for us, which was great.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, and the accommodation that was all part of the package as well?

Jackie Freshwater: Accommodation was all part of the package. And the thing I guess I like about the accommodation is that also had a bit of flexibility with it. We weren't locked into just one hotel in each place that we stayed at, so being able to have a little bit of a look on the recommendations from the Travel Centre gave us three or four, sometimes five, options that we could book with each place. And I really liked that, that I could have a look at them and then just make a booking with it. And probably the the game changer as well, was we could add extra nights in certain places. So we really didn't want to be spending one night in each place and just spend our whole time just on trains. So we really minimum of two nights. And on recommendation, we booked three nights in some places which worked out perfectly.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, yeah, good. Alright. Well, we'll get into your actual itinerary in more detail in a minute. But before, I just want to ask you, so how easy did you find the booking process? So you've gone on to the Switzerland Travel Centre website, you've selected the trip that you want to do, and then you, obviously, you've, you know, that you wanted to book extra nights here and there. So then how did you go about actually booking it?

Alan Freshwater: I found the booking really good, you know, because basically, you could just add those extra days. It wasn't difficult at all doing it and having the accommodation there. So I found the booking process through that was very, very easy to do. And I'm not technological at all. So once I've got onto what the itinerary was, we followed that itinerary, added in the extra nights, and then it just did the rest for us. So it was very easy to book.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, well, that's very good to know. So once the trip was booked, and then before you go, you've got to pay for it. So once you've done that, how did you receive all the tickets and the accommodation vouchers and all the, you know, the final info that you needed to show when you're traveling around Switzerland?

Jackie Freshwater: Yep, everything was emailed. Yeah. So we got everything on email. So it had our train tickets on the ones like I said that were booked, that had the coach number, it had our seats that we were sitting in, and everything like that. So we did receive all that by email. And I just could print everything off, which I I tend to be one that I like to have a hard copy of things. So by having it all there, that's how we received all our information.

Jackie Freshwater: And the other thing we did do that was offered was our luggage could be transported from certain hotels. So we actually did take advantage of that so that basically we could just drop our heavy suitcases downstairs at reception. That ran absolutely smoothly, and it was just basically at our hotel so we could get on the train with just some hand luggage. And so for us, that was actually made it a little bit easier, didn't it?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, we weren't dragging bags from hotels to railway stations or down railway station steps or anything like that on five or six occasions. That was really worthwhile.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, okay, so for anyone listening, who's not familiar with that service that's offered by the Swiss railways. It's obviously pre arranged, and you do have to pay for it, but you leave your luggage at the hotel reception by a particular time in the morning, I think it's usually eight o'clock, and then it gets delivered straight to your next hotel that evening, which I think is usually around 7pm or 6pm or 7pm.

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, I think in every occasion, I think when we arrived at the hotel, the bags were already there.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Right. Wow. That's fantastic.

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, that was great. Yeah.

Jackie Freshwater: And even one hotel, Carolyn, where it was self-checking, and we sort of thought you just had to basically in the foyer, book yourself in and we sort of thought of you. I wonder how we're going to get our suitcases because there's no one here and our bags were actually in our room. So it actually worked really well for us. We didn't have any problem with it at all.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, so let's talk about your itinerary. Can you give us a bit of an overview of how many days you stayed in each place, and perhaps what you did in each of the locations?

Alan Freshwater: We started in Zurich, which was before the tour. Actually, we just that was where we came out of Scotland. So we landed in Zurich, spent a couple of days in Zurich, three nights, and had a look around there. And then the tour started at Lucerne. So we had two nights, I'll just run through the locations, and nights, two nights in Lucerne. Then we went to Interlaken, three nights there. Then we went to Montreux, two nights there. Zermatt was our next stop, which was three and then the long train trip across Switzerland got us to St. Moritz for two nights, two nights in Lugano, down in the lakes district, then two nights back in Lucerne before and that was the end of the tour, and then we headed up to Zurich to fly out.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah. Okay, great. So firstly, when, when you're traveling between destinations, did you choose to travel in first class or second class?

Jackie Freshwater: We did go first class.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, and so you were traveling in June, did you find the trains particularly busy in first class?

Jackie Freshwater: No, not in first class. I think in second class, they were very busy, because I think a lot of the tool groups, when there's a lot of people, they tend to book second class. So we found that second class was really quite busy, to be honest. First Class very comfortable, very easy, and it was really quite nice not having that crowd sort of up there and everything. So it was quite good, the first class, wasn't it?

Alan Freshwater: Trains are really good.

Jackie Freshwater: Trains were great.

Carolyn Schönafinger: So each time you got on into a first class carriage, if it didn't require a seat reservation, you didn't have any trouble finding somewhere to sit?

Alan Freshwater: They checked, no not at all. There was a room they checked. Every time there were guards coming through and checking tickets and that. And occasionally they'd move second class passengers that had found their way the first class suite. They'd move them on, yeah.

Carolyn Schönafinger: But you never had any trouble finding somewhere to sit once you got on board?

Jackie Freshwater: No, no, no. But most of the longer journey ones were pre-booked. So we definitely had our seed allocation. And just going from Zurich to Lucerne, for example, because they run every half an hour or so, we had no trouble getting seats in the first class area at all. And you know, so it worked really well, didn't it?

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, okay, good. Now, you mentioned there that some of those set trains require reservations, and they're not what's referred to as the premium panoramic train. So the Glacier Express, that really long train ride that you did from Zermatt to St. Moritz and a few of the others, I think you actually went on probably all five of the panoramic train. So did you have a favorite?

Jackie Freshwater: Well, we did, actually. Alan can go first, because we had different ones that we liked. I found the eight hour one was quite a long train trip. The scenery was lovely, but eight hours was quite a long one to do. That was obviously our longest one. And which one did you like?

Alan Freshwater: My favorite one was the Bernina, I think it's called the Bernina Express, which went from Saint Moritz down to Tirano, and then from Tirano, there was a bus around to Lugano. But that train trip from St. Moritz down to Tirano was lovely, really scenic, almost scenic everywhere. But I particularly enjoyed that one, I think, because the train was twisting and turning a lot. And you know, you get to see the angles out of the train and look back and see the train behind you and all of that. So that was my favorite. Jackie had a different one.

Jackie Freshwater: Mine. I loved the Gothard Panorama Express because we had a guide there. So I found the time went really quick. By the time he gave us a bit of information, and he was really friendly, and I just got it really interesting, and the views were really lovely, and it wasn't too long a train ride. So that probably was my favorite.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, oh, well, that's good that you both like something different, so it just proves there's something for everyone, isn't there? Yeah, so what were some of the highlights like when you're in each of the locations you obviously did some sightseeing and some mountain excursions? What were some of the favorite things that you did?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, I think this is in terms of my information. Information for your people listening to your podcast. I think this is a really important issue. Is to plan what your day trips might be, your trips to the mountains, assuming that people don't want to just spend their time in the cities, but getting out to the mountains. And you know, there's, there's travel involved in getting to those mountains, but it's not excessive, but you need to plan it out. And I think ours worked really well because we we had those three days in Interlaken where we're able to get out to two different mountain locations, and then we had three days in Zermatt, which was the same we're able to get out to two of those locations and and also sort of have the third day as a rest day, or you could have put that in the middle or or whatever. I mean, we didn't want to be training and then going to mountain destinations every day in a row. That's why we spread the trip out a little bit longer, so we could have a couple of rest days.

Alan Freshwater: And for me, the highlights were Interlaken going up to Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen and and and also the day trips we did out of Zermatt, which was up the cog train, and then out to.

Jackie Freshwater: We had two so where we could see the Matterhorn. So we had a picture perfect day. So seeing the Matterhorn by going up on the private car was fantastic. And they also had a glacier up there as well, Paradise, yeah, so you could walk through and it was so we could really enjoy them. So we did them on separate days, so that we could really take our time and benefit for that. And so Zermatt, having the three nights was well worth it, because it's a beautiful little town that you go to, and then if you do your two days with dying up to see, you know, the Glacier Paradise and the Matterhorn on the other one. It's fantastic, wasn't it?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, your day trips tend to be, you know, half day to maybe a bit longer, four or five, six hours, depending on what you want to do and how tired you get or how much walking and hiking you want to do. So for us, we did cable cars, and we did cog trains and gondolas, and we sort of got a bit of everything, but we certainly got up into the mountains on those day trips that, to me, was the highlight. I mean, the trains around Switzerland were great, and the cities themselves are nice, and being on the lakes was nice. We got on the lakes a couple of times, but we were there for getting up on the cable cars and the gondolas right up to the top.

Alan Freshwater: There was only one time we had some bad weather we couldn't get right to the top. We wanted to get up to Jungfrau right at the top, but we didn't so but we saw Grindelwald, and we got halfway up the mountain, place called, I think it's called either glacier and that and that. You know, whilst it was disappointing not to get to Jungfrau, it would have cost us more to get up there, and it was.

Jackie Freshwater: That's the way it does.

Alan Freshwater: And we just flexed that on the day. And a lot of the hotels have screens in their cameras. Yeah, you can see, you can basically see what the weather's like before you commit to going up. So that was good.

Jackie Freshwater: Yes, yeah. But one I loved as well was when we were in Saint Arete from the lake. We got the cable car up, and fortunately, was right near our hotel and the cable car, and we could walk down to the township then. So it was only a half hour walk, but we went down flower road, I think it was something like that, and it was just beautiful. They had a little story thing that was happening down there, and I absolutely loved that day, because it was really just walking back down to the township, and it was really nice, wasn't it?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, and we also did that once in Zermatt when we're coming down from the Matterhorn, yeah, Glacier. We got off at the second week well, which was the first stop on the way up, it was the last one on the way down, and we walked back into town. That was about a 20, 30, minute walk, wasn't it was about an hour. Yeah, it was an hour. So it was downhill. I wasn't going to do that uphill, but it was very nice. We were, we were basically walking downhill into the town of Zermatt which has no cars, so it's just all pedestrian. And, you know, the Matterhorn was over our shoulder every time we turned around and had a look. So and we really felt like we were in Swiss countries that day, and also they were at Lauterbrunnen when we had a long walk down, probably about an hour and a half walk down through that valley too. So that was great.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, beautiful with those mountain excursions that you did, had you prepaid for those with your package? Or did you just say no, we'll wait till we get there, and then we'll just buy the tickets if the weather's good and it's suitable to go?

Jackie Freshwater: Yeah, that's exactly what we did. So it wasn't including our package at all. So we would decide the day before wherever we were staying. We would look at the options that we've gotta do. And luckily, it wasn't too, too busy. It was just starting to get a few queues and everything like that. But then we would think, right, it's going to be clear weather, let's go up to here and everything. So we would just go and buy the ticket at the station where the gondola goes from, and then do it that way. We did that with every single one, actually.

Alan Freshwater: Yeah. We also did Mount Pilatus from Lucerne.

Jackie Freshwater: Yeah, that was lovely.

Alan Freshwater: So I think if you. Plan out which of these places you want to go to and and in our case, we talked to the hotel people each day when we would get there, we would say to them, you know, around here, for one or two or three nights, what are your recommendations? And in most cases, they pretty much confirm what we thought we were going to do anyway. And one guy told us, I remember with the Matterhorn. He said, Look, this one, particular one here is closer, but this other one, the cog rail, is considered to be the best view because of the angle it looks at the Matterhorn, so we went and did the cog rail first, and that was great. And then we did the next one the next day.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, yeah, good. And I think too you mentioned, like staying two or three nights if the weather had have been bad, it gives you that little bit more flexibility that you can if there's one excursion that you really want to do, at least you've got another day that you can potentially do it. Imagine if you got to every single place and you're only there for a day or one night, and you can't do any of those excursions, at least staying a bit longer, you get a little bit of flexibility, which is good.

Jackie Freshwater: Exactly, and like so if you've got your heart set on going on, it the weather, as you would know, the weather, if it comes in, you just can't see anything at the top. So people that were only there for like you said, for that one day, they ended up going up to Jungfrau. Was it Jungfrau? But they said to us, you you actually could not see anything, you know, but they said we had no options, so we actually went up to the top and, you know, just we've done it sort of thing. And then they came back. So having the extra day was a bit, yeah, it was good, wasn't it?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah. The other thing that really worked for us, too, was that we had Montreux sort of in the middle of the trip, and we didn't do day excursions from there, there were some to do, and there was a lake exertion. But that day was a little bit windy, so we didn't get on the lake, but we just walked around the lakeside. And there's some things to do in that town. It's a nice little town, and for us, that was a little bit of a refresh. Rather than being a traveling day, it was, it was a day we just sort of day and a half that we just stayed around, went to a couple of restaurants and enjoyed ourselves there. So I broke the trip up a little bit.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, lovely. Now, I believe that with your package you had, so for the rail tickets, you had the half fare card. So all your the the half price tickets for all the rail trips you did were already included in your package as well as the half fare card. But having that half fare card meant that when you wanted to do one of those mountain excursions, you only had to pay 50% of the ticket price. Correct, yeah?

Jackie Freshwater: Correct, yes. And that was excellent, yeah. And we had no trouble with that. No trouble at all with you and that that does save you quite a bit of money, like you can get a full fair one, which is a lot more expensive, I think, if it covers everything but the half day one certainly was accepted everywhere, and we use that on every single one that we booked.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Okay, fantastic. So it sounds like you had overall a very good experience in Switzerland. Was there anything about Switzerland that surprised you?

Jackie Freshwater: Um, well, this wasn't a surprise, but Switzerland's quite expensive.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Especially for us Australians.

Jackie Freshwater: Because the dollar isn't really great, but when you're traveling, you've just got to go with the flow with the dollar. And so we really did enjoy it, so it wasn't a surprise to us, but it is a fairly expensive place to go, but it was fantastic. And look, the food was great. The service was great. The rail system's brilliant. Everyone was very helpful.

Alan Freshwater: People were great. Look, it didn't surprise me, but the trains ran like absolute clockwork, absolute clockwork to the minute. There was a Swiss rail app that we were recommended to get, and that was fantastic, because not only would it tell you the time of trains, it would also tell you the platform number you're getting on and switching on a couple of trains you switch halfway through, and that type of thing. So it was just comforting to be on the train and have that app and and know exactly what time you're going through various towns and, and you know which station you're getting off and changing platforms and and all of that. So that's well worth looking at. The the little app for your phone.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, SBB mobile, that is Yeah.

Jackie Freshwater: Initially, because I had all the rail tickets just basically emailed to me they weren't individual tickets for each train. So we did go to the Information Centre at Lucerne When we got there, just to sort of make sure that we had all the right documentation and everything like that. And unfortunately, the woman that I did get said, well, where's your ticket? I said, Well, I must, I don't know. I said, you know, this is what we've got. So she said, No, no, no, no, you've gotta have a ticket for each train ride. So we did go back the next day. I said, down, I better try and sort this out. So we did, and I did contact Swiss Travel then to say, this is what we've been told from the Information Centre. That they very kindly did email and say, no, no, that is your ticket. So when we did go back the next day, just to verify with them, I got a very, very good, smart young man that said, that's your ticket. You don't have to queue up or anything. And so it was sorted very quickly, and it was just the wrong information we were given. So Swiss Travel were great. They let us, reassured us that, no, that's your ticket. You don't have to worry. You've got everything. And then then it was fine.

Alan Freshwater: We learned a valuable lesson, which is, if you're dealing with technology, speak to a 30 year old, not a 60 year old.

Jackie Freshwater: Yes, yes, that was the same age as us.

Alan Freshwater: That was that was a problem. We're all looking at the same thing, and couldn't work it out. But this young guy instantly said, no, no, there it is.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah. So your ticket came basically with a QR code on it? Is that right? So when on each train, the conductor would have just scanned that QR code and it would have indicated the correct ticket was applied? Yeah. So is there anything about this trip in Switzerland that you wish you had done differently?

Jackie Freshwater: I don't think so either, like when we looked at the I'm very, very glad that we added extra days in, because we did meet some people on the train after doing quite long train trips, and they were having to back up to do another train trip the next day. And I really did think, Oh, wow. I'm I'm glad we took our time. I think it would be very, very rushed if you did just get to a destination, have to get the train to the next destination. Much of the train trip is very comfortable. It's nice to sort of experience the places that you're at, and, you know, see what they have to offer. But to be perfectly honest, I think it was pretty perfect what we've done. We were very, very happy with the nights that we spent, weren't we?

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, we certainly saw most of Switzerland. And as much as I'd love to go back at some point, and we probably will at some point, there's no yearning to get back there for things we missed. But those five or six trains we got took us right across the country. We saw a lot of the highlights. You know, while I was there, we were getting emails, you know, little things coming through Facebook and whatnot, telling us all these places to visit in Switzerland, and most of them were on our agenda, or we'd seen them, or we were going to go to them next. So yeah, we feel like we did it really well.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yeah, good. And you obviously had a lot of mountain experiences, because you were in Lucerne and the Jungfrau Region and Zermatt, but then you also had Montreux, which is the Riviera. And then you stayed in Lugano as well. So you got another like, you got the Italian vibe there. And then St. Moritz, which is over on the eastern side. So you really did get a good mix of all the Swiss cultures. And Zurich, yeah.

Alan Freshwater: Zurich is different again, but a lovely city.

Jackie Freshwater: No, no. We really did enjoy each place that we went to, didn't we? It was really lovely. Oh, great.

Carolyn Schönafinger: So have you got any tips for the listeners who are perhaps considering going to Switzerland and exploring it by train? And would you recommend booking a rail package?

Jackie Freshwater: I would definitely recommend booking a rail package. I really do feel that the train system is so efficient, and it really does go to all the destinations throughout Switzerland. So you can really pick and choose. The only advice I would give is, as I said, take your time with it. You know, don't try and rush it too much, and then give yourself a chance to really see what Switzerland has to offer. The mountain excursions are fantastic, and I don't think you'd see them anywhere else in the world. So, you know, give yourself that time to really enjoy it.

Alan Freshwater: I think for us, the extra night we stayed three nights, as I said earlier, in Interlaken, and three nights in Zermatt. That extra night gave us the opportunity to do two of the three days we did the day excursions. Yeah, so in both places, that was four, and that got got us really to the highlights, I think. I mean, there's probably a few highlights in Switzerland we didn't get to, but we got to four of the big ones, and probably on three and a half of them had good weather. So I think the extra day or two gives you that opportunity, gives you that flexibility and and at our age, we didn't want to go at 100 mile an hour either. So I think that they'd be the tips that that we'd be recommended.

Jackie Freshwater: And the other thing I did love that I'll just mention is that when we did do the train that I really enjoyed, it had the boat going into Lucerne, and I loved that. That was we got there. You literally get off the train station, and you're at the like, at the very terminal and everything. And so that was a bit of a bonus, getting the the boat back into Lucerne. And it was another beautiful day, wasn't it? So that was really enjoyable.

Alan Freshwater: That was about a two and a half hour boat, yeah, across the whole of Lake Lucerne, from the bottom to the top.

Jackie Freshwater: So, and it was lovely.

Alan Freshwater: It was beautiful.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Your luggage automatically gets transferred from the train onto the boat for you, so you don't have to worry about doing that either. So it's.

Jackie Freshwater: Well, Carolyn, that was one of the ones that we had where it was at the hotel. So we didn't.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Perfect, so you didn't have to worry about it. You didn't even have to make sure it got on the boat. So, yeah.

Jackie Freshwater: I. Yeah, I got no idea. All I know is, it was at the hotel when we got there, because we could pick five. So you can just pick five, so the ones where the hotels were the furthest destination, or like, for example, we stopped in Tirano for three hours. So that particularly was one that we just wanted hand luggage where we could go for a walk while we're waiting for the next stage of our trip and everything. So we picked the five that were most beneficial to us, and that was one of them. So it worked really well, didn't it? Yep.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Oh, excellent, great. Well, I will share your itinerary in the show notes for this episode, so that anyone listening who wants to see exactly what you did, where you stayed, I'll include that maybe if you're happy to share with me the names of the hotels that you stayed at, because folks might like to look those up so I can include those in the show notes as well. So that would be great.

Jackie Freshwater: Okay, so the first one was in Lucerne. Was the Barabas Hotel Lucerne, which is the jail. Oh, yes, the old jail. Yeah, the old jail. Now I found that within a great central location, the accommodation was fairly basic, but as long as I've got a bed, we had a shower, a bathroom, and everything was fine. And it was in a very, very good location that was accessible to everything in Lucerne, but it was a fairly basic Hotel. Breakfast was fine, but it was pretty good.

Alan Freshwater: Yeah, we had the common dance quarters, so I think probably had.

Jackie Freshwater: A good room, because they range from dormitory style to, you know, where you have your own bathroom. So that was fine, wasn't it? Yeah, in Interlaken, we stayed at the Crystal Interlaken, and that looked lovely. We really enjoyed that one. And again, it was in a great position from the train station, only 200 meters. Yeah, 200 meters. And then, obviously, there's east into life, and then west into life, and so very close to the train station and to the city. So that one was really, really good. I'll get to my favorite one. Montreux was my favorite accommodation. We stayed at the Montreux, and I loved it. We loved it. It was right on the lake. We did upgrade our room. And so that was really probably my favorite hotel. So the Montreux, then in Zermatt. The Zermatt one was very, very nice, and that was at the Yagerhoff Hotels and Apartments, and that was really nice, wasn't it? That was nice. Yeah, we didn't quite have a view of the Matterhorn, because it was taken that's fine, but it was in, again, a really good position to everything. And all the hotels actually were in a really good position, but the Yagerhoff was very, very nice. Um, then we're in St. Moritz. Saint Moritz was at Hotel Nolda. Now this one I really like. I really like this one too, which believe the gondola that went up the mountain was next door to the hotel that we were staying at. So we could just walk out the room and we got the gondola up, didn't we, and then we could walk back through town this.

Alan Freshwater: This hotel was about two kilometers, for a kilometer and a half from the railway station and town. Yes, around the lake a little bit was like a wasn't right in town, yeah. So we did have a bit of a walk to get around there, but, you know, it was walk along the lake. So you could do worse things than that.

Jackie Freshwater: I didn't have to worry about our bags, so we still only had our carry on, yeah, what a difference, didn't it? But that one was a little bit further out. But I did really like that one. Then from St. Moritz, Lugano. Let me just check. So Hotel City, Lugano. Now this one was the one that was a bit out of town.

Alan Freshwater: Now, it was a nice hotel. It was fairly modern. Was in the city, but you'd call it more in the commercial part of the city, not the touristy part of the city. Yeah. So we found ourselves walking 15 Oh, which was fine, but you're walking 15, 20 minutes to get to the bay or to the restaurants. The hotel itself was fine, but it probably location wise was not perfect, yeah.

Jackie Freshwater: Because when we got there, we were trying to look for somewhere to eat. And really there was very limited around unless you go down to the Bay, which was beautiful, but we sort of wanted something a little bit more local. And the next day, when we walked down like Lugano, was beautiful, but it was more than a.

Alan Freshwater: The next day, we found the whole touristy spot with all the restaurants, yeah, fabulous down on the lake, yeah, yeah, we're about 15, 20 minutes from that. So yeah, it probably wasn't a perfect location, or took us a day to find it, yeah.

Jackie Freshwater: But the hotel itself was fine. And then we came back to and stayed at the Ambassador at Lucerne, and I'm trying to remember.

Alan Freshwater: That one, that was the one that had had the check in with, no.

Jackie Freshwater: Oh, that was the self check in place.

Alan Freshwater: That was a self check in. Yeah, that's interesting, because we've been through Lucerne sort of 14 or 15 days earlier and then came back through we noticed how much busier it was, yes, from start of June to mid June. Yeah, there was a lot more people on the street and a lot more tourists around so, but we spent a night or two there before we headed to Zurich and flew out.

Jackie Freshwater: Yeah, that one was a little bit hard to find. Well, I had to ask two or three people, and before we could find it. Room was fine. And again, it was in a good location. The self check in was pretty.

Alan Freshwater: That. Another tip, take a good battery charger for your phone. Yeah, the reason we couldn't find it was because we ran out of phone battery. We'd been on that late cruise that Jackie talked about, taken so many photos that the phone ran out of battery.

Jackie Freshwater: So Alan had lost the dot.

Alan Freshwater: I've lost my little map.

Jackie Freshwater: But we found it so, you know, it was good, wasn't it?

Alan Freshwater: That's part of the fun, isn't it? We knew within a block or two of the hotel, but we lost all connections. Reminded us of the old days where you had to actually ask.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Yes, yeah, and did you stay at the same hotel in Zurich, both before and after the tour?

Jackie Freshwater: No, in Zurich, we we had three nights beforehand, and we stayed right in the main part of Zurich, but when we were coming back from Lucerne to Zurich, we just stayed at an airport hotel. Yeah, so we just stayed at the airport hotel for the night to get our flight home the next day.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing all that with me and telling everyone all about your amazing trip to Switzerland.

Alan Freshwater: Our pleasure. Thank you, Carolyn, and thanks for your help when we were sending it all up too, that was great.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Oh, my pleasure. Well, I'm very confident recommending Switzerland Travel Centre because I've met the people that work there, and I know that they offer a really good product, so I was happy to recommend them to you.

Carolyn Schönafinger: Booking a rail package was the perfect solution for Alan and Jackie. Is it the perfect solution for you, too? With all of your rail tickets, seat reservations on the premium panoramic trains and accommodation booked for you, as well as those super duper luggage transfers if you wish. Booking a Switzerland Travel Centre rail package is a hassle free way to plan your trip. You get the best of both worlds, everything booked for you, but you still get to travel independently and as a valued listener of the Holidays to Switzerland podcast, you can benefit from a 5% discount when you mention the promo code HTSWISS, that's H, T, S, W, I, S, S, when you're booking online, or when you contact Switzerland Travel Centre by email.

Carolyn Schönafinger: There are a huge range of pre-designed itineraries to choose from, and each one can be tailor made to your individual requirements. So if you want to stay longer in some locations, just as Alan and Jackie did, you definitely can. Take a look at the show notes for a link to all the rail package itineraries, including Jackie and Alan's itinerary and the names of all the hotels they stayed at. I'll also include a link to my step by step guide, which shows you how to book your rail package online. It couldn't be easier. I really hope you found today's episode helpful. I think hearing from people who've actually traveled a certain way can really help to give you a more in depth look at what options are out there and if they're suitable or not for you. So again, I hope it was really helpful. Thank you for tuning in and until next week's episode. Tschuss!