Hi everyone,
We are planning for a vacation to Switzerland from 21st to 25th of December this year. This will be our first time visiting Switzerland. Having said that it definitely and most certainly wouldn't be our last. We are very keen on visiting Switzerland and wished to be here since ages. I have tried planning a perfect vacation to Switzerland so many times before,but always got overwhelmed with the sheer number of places that you can visit here. And would never be able to get down on a particular list that would fit both the time of days I have for travel and the number of places I wish to visit. So we had been keeping Switzerland on a backlog since three years now.
But this year we are finally visiting in December. I would love suggestions from anyone regarding any ideas for our short stay of four days. I have been reading many posts since a last couple of days and I really need advice on the following:
1) we are planning on visiting cities and small villages with wintry snow covered Christmas charm. We have a few cities in mind like Zermatt, St Moritz, montreux, lucern, Bern, Zurich. Any ideas and additions are very much welcome. I know we would not be able to make to all the places that I have mentioned here. We are completely flexible on the places we would visit and heavily dependent on any of your suggestions . They need not be any famous cities though. Even small quaint villages are what we are looking for.
2) we are not ski persons(love to watch them though). And we will be traveling with our two year old daughter,so probably we will give the scenic winter hiking trails a miss this year. But would love to know of any suggestions on any easy winter trails in any area, easily doable and not that strenous.
3) My husband is very interested to do any of the scenic trails or two. He is weighing towards the Golden pass, the Glacier tour and the Bernina express. How many can we actually achieve to finish in roughly four days span. He has a idea of sitting in the panoramic trains and reaching a city and exploring the Christmas markets around. I have my reservation towards scenic train routes in winter though. So we do have a difference in opinion on this point. I have seen the views in summer on these trains in many YouTube vedios and I loved them..just not sure if they would be worth in December. As it might not be snowing properly all ready in many places leaving a few. (We will be buying Swiss rail passes so they are included though, just not sure which one of the scenic routes are preferable in December and taking into consideration the amount of time they would take to finish).
4) Any suggestions on any particular leg of a panoramic route that's absolutely not to be missed during December?
5) we will most probably be flying in and out of Zurich . So that's a concern too, so as to choose which city or place as our base (as I understand most of the places need more than three nights or up to a week of minimum stay for reservation)
6) I would really love to visit Zermatt and st moritz . But I am confused about if I have to choose a single destination out the f the two because of time limitations, which one it should be. Or is it possible to visit both using glacier express. But I am really concerned about the amount of time it will take to reach at the place, which will not leave me with much daylight to see the place properly .
I know I have gone on and on about everything here. I know it's too long and I apologise before hand. But I really need proper guidance at this stage as I am feeling so stuck about all of these concerns and have not booked anything yet and it's scaring me that I won't be able to get any good place to stay if I don't finalize an itinerary soon..
Please help and many many thanks in advance.