Visiting Switzerland? Discover 3 Off-The-Beaten Path Swiss Towns That Only The Locals Know About

If you're working on your Switzerland itinerary and want to go beyond the usual tourist stops, this episode is for you! I’m sharing three destinations I recently visited that completely charmed me, each one offering something a little different, a little quieter, and a lot more local.

First up is Savognin, a peaceful alpine village in Parc Ela that’s close to the Landwasser Viaduct, a must-see if you love scenic train views or hiking. It’s a great place to slow down and enjoy nature.

Next, I take you to Lenk Switzerland in the Bernese Oberland. It’s one of those Swiss ski towns that’s perfect for families, with wide open spaces and a relaxed vibe. I stayed at the beautiful Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort and can’t wait to tell you all about it.

And finally, we head to Winterthur, just a short train ride from Zürich. It’s full of culture, cozy cafes, and some amazing Switzerland museums. I stayed at the lovely Park Hotel Winterthur, which I highly recommend. 

If you're dreaming of authentic Swiss towns and villages, beautiful landscapes, or relaxing family ski resorts, these spots deserve a place in your Switzerland vacation.

Safe travels,

Carolyn

👉 Show notes - Episode 159

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Transcript

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, and 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.

Hello, Grüezi, and welcome to episode 159 of the Holidays to Switzerland podcast. If you listened to last week's episode, you will have heard me mention three new destinations for me in my recent trip to Switzerland, and I promised you that I would share more information about them in today's episode. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Now, I don't really like to use the term hidden gem, because is anything these days really, you know, is it actually hidden? I mean, there are people that live in these towns and villages, there are people that know they exist. So, they're not really hidden gems in the true sense of the word, but they may be much less unknown to tourists, and especially international tourists. The Swiss do tend to be very good at keeping some of these little towns and villages pretty quiet. They love to visit them, but they like to sort of keep them pretty close to their chest, and you can't really blame them. We've seen what tourism, mass tourism, has done to many places around the world. So, I'm certainly not blaming them for keeping these places pretty quiet.

But I did visit three of these amazing destinations, and I wanted to share them with you today. Not to perhaps go there instead of other places that may be on your itinerary. Of course, you'll want to visit those popular destinations, they're popular for a reason, they're beautiful, and they've got plenty to offer in terms of things to see and do. But you may like to consider including one or two or even all of these three new-to-me destinations in your itinerary. It may be for a day trip, or perhaps you can include a night or two in one of them and have a really quite an authentic Swiss experience rather than going to a full-on tourist destination.

I'm going to run through these three different places in the order in which we visited them. The first place was in the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland's east. It's a little town called Savognin. It's not very well known at all to anyone outside of Switzerland. And in fact, as we progressed through our trip and we were talking to different locals along the way, they'd say, "Where have you been?" And as soon as we mentioned Savognin they'd say, "What? Only the Swiss go there! How on earth did you come to be visiting that?" But I'd done a bit of research, and as I mentioned in last week's episode, I was quite keen to look at all of the new sites around the Landwasser Viaduct. There are some new viewing points where you can see the trains crossing the viaduct from above and from below. And Savognin was quite well placed to go and see all those sites.

It's a popular ski resort, especially for families, and it's in what's known as the Val Surses Savognin Bivio holiday region. So, it's pretty much right in the middle of Graubünden, and it's surrounded by Switzerland's largest Nature Park, which is called Parc Ela. A fact that I found really interesting is that the population of Savognin is around 850, but around 50% of those people speak Romansh. This is Switzerland's fourth official language, and I think something like less than 1% of the population actually speak it, and yet here in Savognin half of the people that live there actually speak the language, which is just amazing. German is also popular. It's the next most spoken language. But we had no trouble, because all the tourist brochures and the instructions for our accommodation and so forth were all available in English.

Savognin is on what's called Highway 3, and it does connect Graubünden's capital Chur to Engadin, and that highway goes across the Julier Pass. The town itself is kind of made up of two levels: the top and the bottom. So, if you come along the highway on one side, which is a hill or a mountain, there are some houses, and mostly that's residential. But we stayed down in the valley or the bottom part of the town, where the cable car up to the closest mountain goes. Along that main road, there are a couple of supermarkets, a tourist office, a garage, and a few shops and a pizzeria and so forth.

As I just said earlier, I chose it because of its proximity to those Landwasser Viaduct sites. It was also less than two hours by car from Lugano, where we were coming from, and it was only about an hour's drive to St. Moritz and 40 minutes to Chur. We did have a car during our stay here, so that made getting around a bit easier. There are buses between Savognin and Tiefencastel twice per hour; the ride to Tiefencastel takes around 35 minutes, where you can connect with trains all over Switzerland.

Also in the town of Savognin, there's a small lake which serves as a local swimming pool in the summer. It's got a beautiful lawn area around it, a playground, kiosk, etc. And I mentioned the cable car that goes up to the nearest mountain. So, there are plenty of hiking and skiing opportunities there, and you can also rent mountain carts to ride back down. It's really just a quiet, authentic, really, really typical Swiss village.

If you're looking for accommodation there, there are only three hotels in Savognin. There are more in some of the surrounding villages. But as we were staying for six nights, we decided to stay in an apartment so that we could prepare our own meals. The apartment is owned by one of the hotels in the town. It's currently called the JUFA Hotel (J-U-F-A), but it is rebranding later this year, so it will be called something different. But I'm sure if you Google JUFA Hotel Savognin it will still come up. I'll put a link to both the apartment that we stayed at and that hotel in the show notes for this episode.

Who should visit or stay in Savognin? I would say travelers wanting to stay in an authentically Swiss alpine village that is mostly only visited by the Swiss themselves. If you're wanting to visit the Landwasser Viaduct sites or spend some time in the Parc Ela nature park, or if you're looking for a central base in Graubünden to explore more of the area, it's definitely a great place to stay.

The next new destination for us was Lenk. This is a small town which is almost at the end of the Simmental Valley in the Bernese Oberland, and it's a popular holiday destination for residents of Bern and also known as a ski destination, and again, particularly good for families. The Bernese Oberland is actually huge, and most people know it for the Jungfrau Region, and we've talked about that so often on the podcast, but Lenk in the Simmental Valley is a lot lesser known to anyone from outside Switzerland. The valley itself is a few valleys to the west of the Lauterbrunnen Valley that you've probably heard of, and getting there is actually a little bit more involved. It's not difficult, of course, with the public transport connections in Switzerland, everything is very well connected and easy to get to, but it does take a bit more effort.

If you are coming from Interlaken, for example, you need to change trains in Spiez and then again in Zweisimmen, and then you get to Lenk. So, from Interlaken, it takes around two hours by train, or around an hour and 15 to an hour 30 by car. Part of that trip, if you're coming from Interlaken, or actually even from Spiez or from Montreux, you can travel on the GoldenPass Line, which is a great, very panoramic train journey, and the train, which is relatively new, is just amazing. I did travel on that a couple of times on this trip, and it was very nice. So, that train goes from Interlaken to Zweisimmen, and then on to Montreux. So, for part of that trip, you could take advantage and go on that train ride as well.

Lenk itself: it's really hard to put into words just how beautiful it actually is. When you come into the valley, you pass by lush green meadows, which are just perfect for grazing those Simmental cattle that are named after the valley, or perhaps the valley is named after the cattle, who knows? There are wooden chalets dotted on the hillsides, and there are some really impressive waterfalls that flow into the Simme River. There are a couple of local mountains, Betelberg and Metsch. And it's also actually connected to the Adelboden ski region. So, Adelboden is in another valley across.

In Lenk, there are no big tourist attractions. Yes, you can rent Trottibikes to ride down from Betelberg, but most visitors come to Lenk to enjoy the nature, like hiking, biking, and skiing, and to just to unwind in the tranquility of an authentic village. The main street is gorgeous. There are a few sport shops, restaurants and bakeries, a tourist office, and a decent sized supermarket, but you're mostly only going to find Swiss tourists here. It's a really authentic village.

Why did I choose to visit Lenk? Well, I'd visited the Bernese Oberland often, and I was just looking for somewhere a bit different and less known to international tourists. And then, fortunately for me, I was invited to stay at the Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort. There are around 10 hotels and guest houses of varying star ratings in Lenk. But we were lucky enough to stay at the beautiful, five-star superior Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort.

The name of this property probably gives you some idea regarding what to expect: gourmet delights and spa indulgence, and it certainly delivered big time. But more than that, more than just the beautiful meals and the pampering in the spa, it was the genuinely warm welcome and the friendly service that we experienced throughout our stay that really made it feel more like staying with family. Now, I haven't stayed in many five-star hotels before, but they're often known for their pretentiousness and staff that are rather business-like and, you know, cold and stuffy, but that's not what you get at the Lenkerhof. The staff, even from the guy who picked us up from the train station to every staff member that we dealt with during our stay, they were all genuinely happy to be of service and went out of their way to do whatever they could for us and for every other guest.

There are 83 rooms and suites at the Lenkerhof, as well as two excellent restaurants and a fabulous Wellness Center that includes an indoor and outdoor pool, nine different saunas, a steam room, and a spa where you can enjoy a wide range of beauty treatments and massages, and I did. All room rates include an extensive buffet breakfast. And when I say extensive, I mean it. The buffet includes a huge choice of hot and cold dishes, and there's even a special cheese buffet with a selection of more than 30 different cheeses, very impressive.

For the evening meal, you can either choose to book a gourmet package, or you can order from the à la carte menu, and every dish that we had was just absolutely outstanding. Of course, you don't have to dine in the hotel's restaurants every night. If you want a change of scenery, you can go into the town; that's no problem at all. Or, if you prefer a more casual meal, you can order from the bar menu or eat in the lounge area, and in-room dining is also available.

Most nights of the week, there's live music performed in the lounge area, where there's a grand piano. Whilst we were there, there was an Italian singer-piano player entertaining us with popular songs that had everyone tapping their feet and swaying in their chairs. The Wellness Center that I mentioned, which is just divine, is a big attraction for many guests. Even some of the locals come there for a day or to celebrate a special birthday, and it's fantastic.

Hotel guests have unlimited access to the pools and spas. I don't know about you, but I've been to Wellness Centers before, including some in Europe, and to be honest, sometimes it can feel a little uncomfortable. You walk in for the first time and it feels like everyone is looking at you. But just like the welcoming feeling that we had when we first arrived at the hotel, entering the wellness area was just as comfortable. There were a few younger couples staying when we were there, I'm guessing they were in their 30s, but the majority of the other guests were, I'd say, 50 plus. So you weren't always dodging someone taking selfies whilst you were in the pool or the wellness area. In fact, I wanted to take some photos of the pools for the Holidays to Switzerland website, so I waited around until both the pools were empty, and then I snapped away. But I still felt a bit guilty actually getting my phone out, even though I made sure that there were no people in my images.

There's definitely nothing pretentious or stuffy about the Lenkerhof or its guests for that matter. As I said, Lenk does take a bit more of an effort to reach than many of the other well-known places in the Bernese Oberland, but I think that's what makes it so special. I can't say enough good things about Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort. In fact, I was really sad to leave, and I'm sure you will be too if you decide to stay there. If you happen to be celebrating a special occasion during your Swiss trip, or you just want to treat yourself, and of course, you should, I definitely recommend that you book a stay at Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort.

To make your stay even more special, if you quote the promo code FA206HTSWISS, I know that's a mouthful, I'll include that in the show notes, when you do quote that promo code when you're booking on the hotel's website, you'll get a 15% discount, which is just fantastic. All the details will be in the show notes. And there are plenty of photos that I took from my stay there, including of the outstanding food, in the show notes as well. So, make sure you go and check them out, and definitely consider booking a couple of nights or more if you can at Lenkerhof Gourmet Spa Resort.

The other new destination for us was Winterthur. This is a lovely city. I've recently found out it is Switzerland's sixth largest city. But cities in Switzerland aren't huge compared to the cities that we're used to in the United States and Australia, for example. So, even though it is the sixth largest city in Switzerland, there are only 120,000 inhabitants. 10,000 of those are students, so that gives the city a really vibrant feel.

Strolling around Winterthur, we loved the Old Town. It's got a really wide main street called Marktgasse, and it forms part of Switzerland's largest connected pedestrian zone. So, it's a really vibrant but casual kind of feel. Lots of cafes and boutiques, and nice little cobbled areas to sit and have a chat and a coffee and watch the world go by. Lots of the buildings are painted really bright colors. So, it's a really attractive city, and just had a really great, relaxed but vibrant feel.

Winterthur is actually quite well known for its different museums, and it actually has 16 different museums, ranging from art with paintings from artists like Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso, to science and technology, and even a photography museum. So, there's really something for everyone. There are also lots of villas and gardens to explore, and there are a couple of lookout points for views of the city as well. So, you get all the benefits of a city, but you've got nature right on the doorstep.

Around Winterthur, you'll find the landscape is much flatter than it is in many other parts of Switzerland. There are lots of fruit and vegetables grown nearby, and grapes. This part of Switzerland is actually called Zürich's Wine Country. Now, why would it be called that when we're near Winterthur? Well, the fact is that Winterthur is very, very close to Zürich, and that's what makes it a great option. It's actually only 15 minutes by direct train from Zürich Airport, or 30 minutes from Zürich Main Station. So, it's a great option instead of staying in Zürich, because you can be right in the city, or you can be at the airport in next to no time.

It's also just 30 minutes by train to Schaffhausen and there are direct trains from Winterthur to the Rhine Falls. It's 30 minutes to St. Gallen and 40 minutes to Lake Constance. So, it's also a great base for exploring lots of other places. I chose to stay a couple of nights in Winterthur for those reasons: because of its proximity to Zürich Airport, and also because I wanted to visit a new city and explore more of the surrounding attractions.

We were invited to stay at the Park Hotel Winterthur, a four-star hotel, which is right on the edge of the Old Town, so it's in the perfect location. The train station is just 10 minutes away on foot, or you can catch a bus from the bus stop, which is right out the front of the hotel. The hotel is situated right beside a park, hence its name, and there are plenty of beautiful shady trees, making it feel just like a little oasis in the heart of the city.

There are 73 rooms of varying categories and sizes at the Park Hotel, including one really brightly decorated one called the Art Suite. This features original artworks by German artist Marius Sidlitz. There are also rooms that can accommodate up to four people, so this is perfect if you're a family traveling with children, or perhaps two couples traveling together. Our room was a deluxe room on the third floor with a view over the park, and was very quiet and comfortable. All the rooms are non-smoking, have a large shower and toilet, soundproof windows, which being close to the city center is great, and some rooms also have a balcony.

A couple of little unique touches at the hotel that are really nice, which I'd like to mention: when we went into the bathroom of our room, there was a little note written onto the bathroom mirror saying, you know, "Such a lovely smile" or something. And each morning, there was something like that after the housekeepers had been in. It was just something unique, but made you smile. There was also a little calico bag left on the bed with a note saying that if you do not wish to have a daily housekeeping service, hang this bag on the door of your room and we'll surprise you with a little gift. So, that's something special as well.

A delicious buffet breakfast is served in Bloom Restaurant, which is right beside the park in the hotel, and it's just surrounded by greenery. There are floor-to-ceiling windows on the two sides of the restaurant that face the park, so it makes it really light and airy. Buffet breakfast is included in all room rates, and there's a great selection of hot and cold foods, so there's something there to please everyone. That restaurant is also open for dinner each evening, and we enjoyed a delicious meal on our first evening at the hotel. There again, a wide range of dishes on the à la carte menu with options for people with dietary requirements as well, so there's plenty to choose from. And the locals love dining at Bloom, so when the locals dine there, you know it's good. In warmer weather, you can actually dine outdoors on the terrace. And they also set up some tables and chairs on the lawn area of the park too. Would just be beautiful on a hot summer's day. A smaller menu is offered for lunch in Bloom during the week. And there's also a bar menu which features things like light meals and snacks like burgers, soup, salads, pastas, etc., which you can order and enjoy in the cozy bar and lounge area daily between two and eight.

The hotel has a fitness room with a few machines and a sauna, and it also has four e-bikes available for guests to use as well. Throughout the hotel, you'll find some beautiful works of art. That's the connection there with all the museums that Winterthur is known for, and there are certainly some beautiful pieces there to enjoy. And there are also some cozy seating areas at the end of each hallway with views out over the park and the city. The staff here were very warm and friendly, very helpful. When we had any questions about sightseeing or bus timetables, they were all over it, and were able to help us, and were very happy to do so.

I think the convenience of staying just 15 minutes from Zürich Airport makes Winterthur definitely a great option. Accommodation rates in Winterthur are definitely a bit cheaper than they are in Zürich, so that could be a good thing to consider as well. The proximity to so many other places makes it a really good option. Why not, if you're flying into Zürich, head straight to Winterthur to start your itinerary? You can go and visit the Rhine Falls and some of those other places that I mentioned, and then head off following the rest of your itinerary, or perhaps stay in Winterthur towards the end of your trip, before heading back to Zürich Airport to fly out.

Again, the lovely team from Park Hotel Winterthur have kindly offered our listeners a generous discount. When you book on their website, you can benefit from 15% off all room categories if you use the promo code HTSWISS. That promo code, more information and photos from my stay at Park Hotel Winterthur will be in the show notes for this episode.

So, Savognin in Graubünden, Lenk in the Bernese Oberland, and Winterthur not far from Zürich. There are a few new options that you might like to consider when you're planning your Switzerland itinerary.

If what you've heard in today's episode or any previous episode has inspired you to visit a new destination, or if you've learned a travel tip that might help you throughout your itinerary, or you've booked a tour or a hotel based on what you've heard in the podcast, I'd love to hear about it. And if you have any other feedback about the podcast, I'd love to hear that too. So, feel free to send me an email to podcast@holidaystoswitzerland.com. I'd love to hear from you.

That's all I've got for this week. Next week, I'll be back again with more Swiss travel tips and inspiration. So until then, take care and Tschüss!