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Lucerne 3 nights

We will arrive from Varenna via train probably early evening. (1st night) want to head up Titlus next morning. If we can do Pilatus or Rigi same day great, (2nd night) otherwise will do the next day. I would prefer to stay that 3rd night in Lucerne and take the 4:55 am train to Zurich airport to catch a 9 am flight to Dublin. Some have told me to stay near the airport(3rd night) but I want to be in the alps midday & not checking out of a hotel. Do I have any reason to believe this plan is not feasible? A 1 hr. Train ride should get us to the airport 3 hrs. ahead of our flight.

Posted by
1443 posts

Luzern directly to Zurich airport is easily done. I did it last time i flew out of Zurich.

Posted by
412 posts

We left Luzern on an 8:00 a.m. train to Zurich for a late morning flight and it went well. That allowed us to enjoy one more hearty hotel breakfast before we left!

One concern I had with your proposed timing - I think you should allow a whole day to get from Luzern to Mt. Titlis and back, and not try to fit in Rigi or Pilatus on the same day. Engelberg was beautiful. You might find that Mt. Titlis satisfies your need for a mountaintop experience as we did - there was snow and it was truly magnificent when we were there last July. There would not have been snow on either Rigi nor Pilatus at that time of year, we were told. So, we went to Engelberg first, and then explored Luzern during the next few days. We decided not to go to Rigi or Pilatus.

It depends on how many mountains you want to ascend - but Luzern is beautiful, and a paddlewheel cruise on the lake would be another good thing to do while there. We took a cruise from Luzern to Weggis simply to enjoy the experience. we strolled around Weggis along the shoreline, found a surprise Mark Twain monument, had a lovely lakeside lunch, and then went back on the steamer to Luzern. It was our last full day in Switzerland and it was relaxing and wonderful. The next morning it was a quick walk to the train station, the train to Zurich Flughafen (airport - one of my favorite new words) and then our flight home.

Have a great trip!
Laurie

Posted by
74 posts

Hi Laurie,
Thanks for the response. Apparently several people have misunderstood my itinerary. I meant that I will arrive late afternoon in Lucerne and stroll through town that evening. The next morning (our first full day) will be dedicated to Mt. Titlis. I was curious if we could do both Pilatus and Rigi on the following day (our 2nd full day), and if not which of the two would be a must see?