Switzerland in Sept 2020

In Switzerland, the trains can get you easily to everywhere you mention, starting and ending at Zurich airport.
You'll probably want to do the Glacier Express from Zermatt to St Mortiz. Youcan easily spend 3 nights at each of your spots. I'd take a day away from Bern and add to someplace other than Interlaken, like Lauterbrunnen or Wengen or Muerren. Zermatt, Wengen, and Muerren are all car-free villages so you must use the train to get there.

Hi,

I’d skip Interlaken. I’d stay min. 4 nights in the BO, either Wengen or Muerren. I’d also stay min. 3 nights in Zermatt. Make sure you see the Matterhorn. We took and enjoyed the Gornergrat train trip in Zermatt. I’d suggest adding Lucerne for 3 nights. Depending on the time of the flight home, you can spend your last night before the flight in Lucerne.

I have to say our least favorite place on our trip (St. Moritz, Zermatt, Wengen, Lucerne) was by far St. Moritz itself. Very, very upscale. We stayed one night as a way to do the entire Glacier Express. Be prepared for that. Our trip on the GE was 9 hours long. On the train. We were shot less than halfway through it.

Switzerland is stunning. Enjoy!

Paul

Based on your goals, I would skip Bern altogether.

Rick's Switzerland guidebook should offer a fair number of smaller-town alternatives to those few cities that he covers. I think you'll notice these as you read further, beyond the summary of priorities in the introduction.

• Instead of Bern, you could consider staying in Murten or Avenches, for instance.
• Near Lausanne, he doesn't cover accommodations in Chexbres or Morges (mentioned for sightseeing on p. 251), but those are possibilities you could look into online.
• Luzern is really not large. A bus ride to Kriens (for the Mt. Pilatus lift) takes 10 minutes and is technically a different town.
• We don't generally sleep in Interlaken, but in smaller villages closer to the mountains.
• We also prefer smaller Samedan or Pontresina over St. Moritz.

Keep in mind that day trips from a smaller home base town may require extra connections. You can sample train connection times for almost anywhere in Europe through DB, which tends to require fewer steps than the Swiss site www.sbb.ch.

Check out this website. Should give you some ideas: https://grandtraintour.myswitzerland.com/

Pontresina much more charming than St. Moritz and the walking options from there excellent, supported by the little red Rhaetian Railway trains. The hike and/or horse drawn wagon trip through the Val Roseg was wonderful and well described in Rick’s book. We took the horse drawn wagon up and walked back after lunch at the hotel.

If you're going to be there for 2 weeks, you would easily have time to go to one of the towns on Lake Geneva. We stayed in Montreux and easily took boats or trains to Lausanne, and even across Lake Geneva to Evian-les-Bains, France for lunch. It's an easy day trip to Grueyer- a charming medieval town further up in the mountains. We landed in Zurich and took the train straight to Lake Geneva where we spent 3 nights. There was plenty to see and do, but also a perfect way to settle in, relax by a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and get ready for the next part of our trip.

Laura is right - if you look past the chapter titles in the Switzerland book (which are of the bigger places), you'll see a lot of smaller places recommended. If you put them up on Google Maps, you can find even smaller places nearby. So, Rick's general itinerary works, as long as you make substitutions.

Definitely skip Interlaken; its only value is as a transportation hub (boats, buses, trains) to nicer places. Stay in one of the Berner Oberland towns. Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, Muerren, and Gimmelwald (in decreasing order of size) all have their fans, but you can't lose with any of them. They have exactly what you are seeking; Interlaken doesn't (since your list of goals didn't include jewelry stores, sex shops, casinos, or large tour groups). With two weeks, I'd spend 4-6 nights in the Berner Oberland, as there are all kinds of walks, hikes, and rides possible, from really easy to really difficult, and some bad weather options too.

For the Lake Geneva area, Rick recommends Lausanne, but you'll be happier in Vevey or an even smaller town. There is frequent train service all along the lake, so you can see the whole region from one base.

Bern and Luzern are nice small cities, and both are within easy reach of the Zurich airport (70 minutes by direct trains right from the airport station with no changes). Logistically, either of these work as good first or last stops. I agree with Laura that Luzern has lots of "nature" right nearby, so it's a good first stop; you can take a lake cruise, or go up Mt. Rigi, Mt. Pilatus, or Mt. Titlis as a day trip. Bern has a number of interesting museums, and like Luzern is a very pleasant place. Neither one is very "urban" compared to a place like New York or Chicago, so while you'll want to spend more time in other places, don't fear a night or two in them if they work well with your itinerary. They'll certainly be cheaper then staying in Zurich.