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Suggestions for Western Switzerland

Posted by on

Hello All!

My boyfriend and I will be traveling to Italy and Switzerland in May, and I could use some suggestions for the last three nights of our trip.

We arrive in Zurich on May 6, and will be spending our first three nights in / around Como, Italy. From there, we travel to Wengen, Switzerland and will spend four nights there (May 9 - 13). This part of our trip is booked for places to stay, things to do, etc.

My question is what to do with our final three nights (May 13-16)... We fly out of Geneva in the early afternoon of the 16th. We had originally planned to venture into France, however, I'd rather not dedicate and entire day of train travel to accomplish that. I've seen Bern, Montreux, Lausanne, and Geneva all listed as places to see, but which would be the best given our time frame? Could we do two of these locations with just one full day to dedicate to each? Should we just spend more time in Wengen?

I'd like to see more of Switzerland than just Wengen, so that option is the last on my list. Bern and Montreux seem to be the most appealing, but I'd like opinions! This is my first time traveling outside of the US, so anywhere we go will be exciting. We'll be relying on train travel between locations.

Thanks for any info you can provide!!

Posted by
1671 posts

You could base in Lausanne and choose day trips by train to Bern, Gruyeres or Montreaux. I would suggest staying in Geneva the night before your flight.

Posted by
3551 posts

Lausanne is wonderful lots to see and take paddle wheel historic ferry to chateau chillion from lausanne for an afternoon. If u have interest in CERN in Geneva by airport u could try to get tickets by lottery. For the day bef u leave .

Posted by
32206 posts

Another vote for Lausanne. It's a beautiful city and would make a good home base for touring that area. Depending on what time your flight is, you may have to spend the last night in Geneva.

Posted by
304 posts

We used to live in Lausanne. Some of our favorite things to do there were, yes, to take the boat to Montreux / Château de Chillon, or across the lake to Évian-les-Bains in France (restaurants are cheaper across the lake!).

We also loved walking in the Lavaux lakeside vineyards between Lausanne and Montreux. You can stop at caves for wine tasting.

We often took visitors to Gruyères, which is a lovely place, but we went by car.

Posted by
7209 posts

The Lavaux Wine area is stunning and you can rent bikes and pedal through the wineries stopping along the way to sample.

I just visited Bern last year for the first time and thought it was a wonderful city.

Personally Geneva is at the bottom of my list of Swiss places to visit.

Posted by
5 posts

Thanks for all the replies!!

Looks like Lausanne is the clear choice, so I'll definitely be checking that area out. Thanks again!

Posted by
10 posts

One of the nice things about Switzerland is that the trains and Post buses are all so efficient. The thing that shocks many people with their first trip to Switzerland is sticker shock as food can be quite expensive in places (especially near Zurich). You can reduce costs by taking an advantage of supermarkets for grab and go as well as other items.
Make sure you bring your hiking boots (or suitable shoes for hiking) as it is spectacular there.

Enjoy your trip

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