Best city to get a good view of the Alps, and paragliding?

Interlaken gets trashed, but just a short train ride away is Lauterbrunnen, and just a short cable car and another short train ride from there, or a bus ride and a bigger cable car ride away is Muerren. There you will be in the Alps, not near them. Muerren is also a big paragliding location with lots of operators standing by to show you the Alps up-close and personal.

Hope you have good weather for your 2 days, not always a guarantee.

Another vote for Muerren, spent a week there two years ago and your right in the middle of the heart of the alps and the hang gliders are out just about everyday in the summer if it is sunny.

You mentioned you will be heading to Paris after your short stay in Switzerland. Where will you be before Switzerland? With so little time available, that's important.

The Swiss cities are very attractive, but most visitors do want to go to the Alps. The cities are down in the valleys. Switzerland is not a large country, but the geography is challenging. Trains run frequently, but it can still take a long time to reach some destinations, especially when travel through mountainous areas is required. You may well have to switch to a cog-wheel train or some sort of mountain lift, or a postbus.

Coming from outside Switzerland, it could take a full day to get to some Swiss mountain areas, and then it could take the better part of a day to get to Paris. That would leave very little time to be in Switzerland. That's why it's critical to know your starting point.

I was thinking in of flying into Switzerland. I.e. fly in the morning to Zurich, take a train from Zurich to wherever city I'm visiting in Swizterland, then go to France for the night. If need be, come back the next day to see anything else that you couldn't see in a day.

I thought Lucerne was lovely and there are a couple of mountains to go explore like Mt Pilatus, lake cruises, etc. Nice walkable old town area.

Have not been to Lausanne or Montreaux ( hopefully later this year we will) but the photos of the Lake and surrounding mountains look beautiful. From there to Paris on the high speed rail (TGV) it's about 3-4 hours.

You could also use the Golden Pass scenic rail line for part of your travel. It's goes from Lucerne to Montreaux. Zurich airport to Lucerne is a short hop.

I stayed in Lucerne and Wengen for 3 nights each and I would go back tomorrow if I could! Wengen has a cable car to Mannlichen where I took the greatest hike of my life. Murren is just as pretty as Wengen and I remember having a wonderful lunch watching the paragliders going by. I would see the Swiss Alps in Switzerland (and not France) and I agree to stay away from the big cities.

We have stayed in Grindelwald, Lucerne and Pontresina. From our deck in Grindelwald we felt like we could reach out and touch the magnificent Eiger.

sammahdi1994

I was thinking in of flying into Switzerland. I.e. fly in the morning to Zurich, take a train from Zurich to wherever city I'm visiting in Swizterland, then go to France for the night. If need be, come back the next day to see anything else that you couldn't see in a day.

I think you are seriously underestimating the travel time and the distances involved here. It looks close on the map, but there are mountains in the way making travel slower and less direct than you might think. It takes at least half a day to a whole day to travel between most places. The best option for you may be to fly in Zurich and take the train from the airport to Luzern (about 1.25 hours) which is both a nice city, and in a scenic location. You have some choices of going up a few different mountains from there (which will take most of a day. The mountains are always subject to rapidly changing weather conditions. Then on to France (Colmar would be my choice). But you don't have time for backtracking.

I've done paragliding from Murren using Paragliding Jungfrau. They have a number of jump points in the region, including the Schilthorn.

I also get the impression that you're seriously underestimating the travel time between locations. Travel time is not only the actual time on the train, but also getting to & from stations, waiting for trains, etc.

"Finally, is 2 days really necessary to see everything?"

Two days (three nights?) is far too short for Switzerland and won't allow you much time to see anything. With such a very short time frame, I'd suggest choosing one location and focusing your attention there. I agree with others that the Berner Oberland would be a perfect choice as you'll be right in the mountains. You can stay in Lauterbrunnen or Mürren and spend one afternoon with a Paragliding adventure. You could also take the large Schilthornbahn cable car to Piz Gloria, where the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service was partially filmed many years ago. There's a revolving restaurant there that provides some spectacular views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, which you can enjoy while having a fine meal.

You can use the Bahn.de website to plan rail journeys. It's actually a fairly easy trip from Switzerland to Paris but it will take several hours. If you don't mind a later start, there's a departure from Lauterbrunnen at 11:32, arriving Paris Gare de Lyon at 17:38 (two changes at Interlaken Ost and Basel SBB). That would get you there in time for a brief walkabout after checking into your hotel and having a nice Paris supper.

If you had time, I would also recommend Lucerne as it's incredibly beautiful and one of my favourite cities. The transportation museum there is fantastic! While there you could take a day trip to Mt. Pilatus (use the Funicular in one direction and the cable car to Kriens in the other). Incredible views but not a lot to see other than that. There are two hotels at the top so you can enjoy a nice lunch.

IMO, Geneva and Zürich are not the best use of your travel time, especially for such a short trip.

It seems Murren and Lauterbrunnen seem highly recommend for being in the alps, and going to visit the revolving resturant. From my understanding though, these are both quite close, and both paragliding and the resturant can be done in the same day. Thus, it looks like all that is needed is 2 days (i.e. we arrive day 1, go to Lauterbrunnen, and just getting there will be the whole day, day 2 we go paragliding and see the mountains/resturant/town, day 3 we leave to go to Paris [looks to be 6 hour train ride, so can leave halfway through the day if we wish to explore more]). Do I have that correct?

Do I have that correct?

Pretty much.

unless you have less than perfect weather on day 2. The mountains have their own weather and, for example, is usually better in the mornings than the afternoons.

Wouldn't it be a shame if you went all that way and were disappointed....

True, but unfortunately this is part of a 1-month europe trip, so there isn't much wiggle room in terms of waiting for the weather to clear up. Hopefully the weather is good and in our favor! At the very least we'll still be able to see the landscape and city.

Also pricing is a huge factor as well. Switzerland is probably the most expensive country/city I've seen in terms of hotels (especially in these cities). The price we'll be paying for just 2 nights there will count for days in other countries, so also wouldn't be willing to stay there any longer than we have to just for pricing alone.

It's true that Switzerland is comparatively expensive. And that doesn't exclude the train tickets. Be sure you know how much you're going to be spending for those (plus the two hotel nights) in order to have just one day in Switzerland. Though of course there will be some nice scenery while you're on the train--as long as the weather cooperates. I've seen it so foggy and rainy that you couldn't really see anything at all. That would have been in either late May or June, I think.

True, but unfortunately this is part of a 1-month europe trip, so
there isn't much wiggle room in terms of waiting for the weather to
clear up. Hopefully the weather is good and in our favor! At the very
least we'll still be able to see the landscape and city.

It's your trip and not mine and you should travel the way you like, but a 2 day stop in a month long trip? What does the rest of the trip look like? It sounds a lot like one of those "10 countries in a week"-trips.

But if you want to see the landscape, the Austrian alps are very similar to the Swiss and staying there is cheaper.

another option, to see some mountains and be near France, would be to take the train from Montreux to Interlaken and back, or from Interlaken head to Basel or Bern or Zurich to catch a TGV to Paris.

Or Chamonix.

It is a 10-country in 1 month trip. So 2 nights in each country would be 3 weeks (and that's not including travel time between the countries). I feel like you can see what most cities have to offer anyways in 2 days (e.g. I've been to various places in Europe such as London and Madrid, and I'd say after 2 days I had already seen most of what the cities had to offer).