While we realize that we are not going at the ideal time, my wife and I will be landing at 8:00 AM in Zurich on April 14 and need to be at CDG airport outside of Paris bright and early on Sunday, April 20 to pick up friends with whom we will be spending the next week based in a timeshare near Disney, Paris.
Our tentative Switzerland itinerary is as follows:
Immediately take a train to Luzern, staying in Luzern for one night. Hopefully we
will have enough energy to explore a bit and enjoy our time there.
Leave Luzern and head to Lauterbrunnen or thereabout, stay
there Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It seems like this would be a good base to explore the town, possibly with excursions to Jungfraujoch, Murren or Interlaken.
Leave Lauterbrunnen first thing Friday, taking the train to a border location where we
can pick up a car to use in France. We considered taking a train to Paris, but we
had a great time on our last trip driving through small towns and thought
that 1 1/2 days to meander across France would be fun. The 7:00 AM pickup at CDG is a bit
tough to work around.
Our primary goal is to see a bit of the Alps, do a little site-seeing and eating, and to relax.
We have not booked anything yet, but this is the direction we are leaning. Not being at all familiar with the area, it is tough to get a handle on what it will be like and whether this is a good itinerary. We considered heading from Luzern to Murren, staying there 2 nights and having one more night elsewhere in Switzerland on our way to the French border and the car pickup, but it seemed that the "relaxation" goal might be better served by 3 nights in one room.
It seems like it would make sense to get the 8 day Swiss Rail Pass, although I have not yet compared the prices to the individual trips that we expect to take. As the pass provides more flexibility, it is probably worth a little extra.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments I would very much appreciate hearing them. Specifically, suggestions on good places to stay and eat in Lauterbrunnen would be great. I suspect that browsing the forum I should be able to find plenty of info on Luzern.
There may be a better place to post this question, but the other significant detail that I am researching is where to best pick up the car. It seems the Geneva Airport is one obvious option, but we can save the airport pickup surcharge if I can find a car rental location near a French train station. For some reason I am focused on the area near Basel, although the distances are do similar that pretty much anywhere along the border would work. Tricky stuff, never having been on a train in Europe other than the Paris subway.
Thanks in advance for any comments and suggestions!
David