I plan to visit Switzerland with my husband in Sept. 2017 for two weeks. We don't have anything set as yet and are flexible. We will be using trains and while we want to tour and see the country we don't want to be traveling every day. Ideally we will end up in the lake district of either Switzerland or Italy. We are both in our early 70s and active but not really interested in hiking. Any ideas would be welcome especially if we should stay in one spot for a week and possibly rent an apartment and do day trips. MOst likely we will fly into Zurich and out of Milan.
Posted by
Bay Area
3551 posts
I just had a wonderful summer in switz. Lucerne is a wonderful base then ferry out to mt pilatus and mt rigi after seeing beautiful lucerne etc. Then a few days in berner oberland gorgeous area basing in Murren see jungfrau, lauterbrunnen valley. Then make your way to lake como , lodging in Varenna. See lots incl Lugano, bellagio, menaggio. The abv is an amazing itinerary an route imhop it work for u. These areas are great if u wish to relax or swiss reasonable spa Mt Rigi area for a day or part of a day.
Posted by
OP
thornhill
5 posts
Thanks for your reply. I will check into all of the places you suggested. i have read comments by a number of people raving about Murren. Sounds like you had a wonderful time.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
JS beat me to it. I was going to suggest the same three bases - Luzern, Mürren, and Varenna. I haven't been to Lago Maggiore, but you should also look at that, as it seems the connections back to Milan Malpensa airport are better. If you stay in Varenna on Lake Como, you may need to pay for a very expensive taxi to get to the airport in time for your flight, or else spend the last night in Milan (a city I like a lot, but others do not).
Rick's Switzerland and Italy books have lots of information about these places.
Note that staying in Mürren, you will be in the Alps, but you need not "hike" if you don't want to (I sure didn't). There are level walks, slightly uphill or downhill walks, lifts to take you up or down if desired, as well as some spectacular rides way up to the Schilthorn or the Jungfraujoch. The variety of both things to see and ways to see them is part of what makes this area so wonderful.
Just a technical note: While we in the US speak of "the Italian lake district" in the singular, in Italy there are lakes spread over a relatively large area of the north. The three biggest ones are Como, Maggiore, and Garda (this last is closer to Venice than Milan). And in Switzerland, there are lakes all over the country, with no one "lake district." You even have your choice of language regions. For instance, Lake Geneva is French, Lake Luzern is German, and Lake Lugano is Italian.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17418 posts
If you decide on Varenna for your Lake District experience, I highly recommend taking the route of the Bernina Express to get there. This goes from Chur or St. Moritz in Switzerland to Tirano in Italy. It is in my view the most scenic train ride in Switzerland, and we really enjoyed it. You can ride a regional train instead of the designated Bernina Express train if you like ( we did).
From Tirano it is a short train ride to Varenna (1.5 hours).