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New Years Switzerland Itinerary Help

Hello & thank you in advance for any help.
We are a family of 4 (teen/adult kids). We will spend the first week and a half of our trip visiting Christmas markets and castles in Munich & Vienna. We have one week we would like to spend in Switzerland. 12/27 we would leave Vienna and this is where I'm stuck.
Things we would like:
We will be there over New Years so we'd like something nice to do.
Watch factory tour
Chocolate tour
Scenic train ride - Bernina, Glacier or I've heard of Jungfraugoch as well

No snow sports probably but we love to explore. We love history, churches, museums, checking out shops in the city. We are pretty open. I've been to Interlaken before in the summer but the rest of my family has never been to Europe.

So my main questions are - do we fly or take a train and to where? I was thinking of flying to Zurich and then taking day trips but would we would spend a lot of time commuting? Should we do a couple of days in a couple of different cities? And the scenic train - we are open to taking one whole day to do this if it's the best way to do a scenic train tour. I know Glacier is a long day - then we would have to take another train to get to the next city. Bernina would only work if we did a long round trip or if we spent one night in Tirano - is that redundant to take it back then? Or should we finish with that train and fly home from somewhere near there? Not sure if that is time or cost-efficient. I just would like the make the most of our week in Switzerland and not feel too packed in or rushed.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We tried getting help from a travel agent but she just wanted to book us on group tours which is not really our vibe.

Posted by
158 posts

I was thinking of flying to Zurich and then taking day trips but would we would spend a lot of time commuting?

Given your interests, this plan works well. Many cities with excellent museums and historical sites are within an hour of Zürich, including Luzern, Bern, Basel, and St. Gallen.

New Year's Eve in Zürich:

https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/new-years-eve-in-zurich

Another option is to base yourself in Bern, a city rich in history and also just an hour from Luzern, Basel, Zürich, and Lausanne.

From Bern, you can take the scenic Golden Pass route to Montreux via Zweisimmen, returning via the faster route Montreux-Lausanne-Bern. An advantage of this is the flexibility to choose the best weather day for your Golden Pass ride.

I also enjoyed the Omega watch museum in Biel, just 30 minutes away, which includes a Swatch section. Additionally, Burgdorf, only 13 minutes away, has a fascinating castle with intriguing exhibits.

https://schloss-burgdorf.ch/en/

I’m a bit of a fan of the 'one base' idea, especially when there is so much to see within an hour's radius. I like to explore from a single home base, but I’m sure others will have some great suggestions for you as well. Keep in mind that while you might have beautiful sunny days, winter can also bring low-lying clouds or fog, which can obscure mountain peaks. A longer scenic train ride in such weather isn’t quite as enjoyable

Posted by
4 posts

Thank you. I guess I just need to figure out how much time we would spend traveling to our sights and that will tell me if we are choosing the right destination or if we should move bases a couple times.