Feeling overwhelmed to get the most in with a short amount of time. We disembark our River Cruise on 12/22 in Basel and depart Basel 12/27. We thought we would use Bern as our home base. We would love to make a day trip to the mountains but beyond that we don’t have any other days trips set it stone. We travel internationally in December and know our daylight hours are limited but are the type that are out the door early in the morning and back in our hotel after dinner. This is our first trip to Switzerland and we would appreciate any help filling our itinerary with day trip suggestions.
Posted by
Green Bay
21141 posts
Luzern would be my first thought. Short train ride from there to Engelberg in the mountains.
Posted by
San Diego, California
5604 posts
The nice aspect of using Basel as a base is the access to the Christmas markets in Colmar and Strasbourg , unless you have already been there as part of the cruise.
The Bern markets are very nice, the Basel markets smaller.
If you go to Lucerne, you could access Mt Rigi if you have a clear day.
Have a great trip in this beautiful country.
Posted by
Green Bay
21141 posts
If you are coming off a river cruise, you will hace already visited Strasbourg and possibly Colmar. Basel has good Christmas Markets, so hanging around there the first day is not a bad idea.