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April itinery help

Posted by (Texas) on

My husband and I are traveling to Switzerland for the first time in April. I have read about April not being the best month to travel to Switzerland but we really have our heart set on celebrating our wedding anniversary there. Please advise if this itinerary would work in April. Any feedback is welcome !

April 8-10 Arrive Zurich by mid morning.( thinking of spending 2 nights here because of travel fatigue/jet lag.. is it a good idea or one night is sufficient ?)

April 10-12 Appenzell ( I was reading that ebenalp/ aescher hotel would be closed in beginning of April so is it worth the trip or should we skip appenzell all together and instead include engelberg /mt titlis?)

April 12-14 Lucerne (lake Lucerne, mt Pilatus)

April 14-17 Lauterbrunnen (jungfraujoch, murren, gimmelwald, schilthorn, winged)

April 17- 19 Lausanne ( Lake Geneva, Montreaux)

April 19- April 19 - 20 Zermatt ( Gornergrat)
April 20- back to Zurich 

April 21- leave for US.



Posted by
3551 posts

If No real reason to stay in zurich, get over jet lag somewhere wonderful like lake constance. The train goes direct from airport to Lindau. A layback lakeside town. Or stay longer in Lake Lucerne only 1 hr train from Zurich airport.
Appenzell is a beautiful area, stay in a chalet if u can.
Engelberg is wonderful for its monastery tour, imo.
Weather as u prob know may impact your itinerary. Perhaps
You can book,as noted but have alternate places to visit . IE. In lauterbrunnen if weather is bad even on valley floor go to,Lake Brienz or Lake Thun for the day.
Your itin looks vgd . I am just not sure how the weather will be in the higher elevations.

Posted by
20067 posts

I'll sketch out some ideas with maybe a slightly better order to visit.

As was said, go to Appenzell directly form the airport and rest up there. It takes 1 hour and 40 minutes with a single train change in Gossau, and trains from the airport are every half hour.

Take the Glacier Express train to Zermatt. From Appenzell you take a train (through Gossau again) to Chur and pick it up there. GEX stops there at 11:17, and there is a connection leaving Appenzell at 8:03. Since it is your wedding anniversary, spring for 1 st class tickets and enjoy lunch served at your table. Easy for me to say, its your money.

Stay in Zermatt at least 3 nights to better the odds of having a nice day to take the Gornergrattbahn and view the Matterhorn. Zermatt has skiing all year long and has a lot of hotels, so even if many shut down at the end of the main season mid April, there should still be plenty of options.

Recommend Vevey on Lake Geneva (Leman), as opposed to Lausanne, which is a city.

Another scenic train ride via the Golden Pass to Interlaken then to Lauterbrunnen. Muerren would be a nice place to stay, but check availability. A lot of hotels will shut down at the end of the main ski season on April 8, but there will be some options.

Then another scenic train ride to Luzern. I pick this as the last stop, because it is an easy 1 hour train direct to Zurich Airport for the flight home. Most flights back to the States leave late morning, so you don't have to get up too early. Exception would be if you have an early flight to another European city to connect home, in which case, you'd be better off staying in Zurich the last night.

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