We are taking a Viking river cruise in September out of Basel. Thought we would fly in a few days early and take a train or two to see some scenery and another small city or two. Thoughts please.
Thanx
Bern is one hour away and very nice to visit.
Colmar in Alsace is only 43 minutes away, again by direct train.
If you want to see the mountain village of the Berner Oberland, it is 2 hours to Interlaken Ost, where you change to the regional train heading to either Grindelwald (36 minutes):or the Lauterbrunnen Valley (22 minutes). For the alpine villages of Mürren and Wengen, you take a train or cablecar up from Lauterbrunnen.
And don't try to fly to Basel, Zürich is a much better option.
Luzern for my money. So much to see and do.
The air itinerary maybe decided by Viking.
If you book SWISS to Basel you will fly to Zurich anyway, and take a train from there.
As Stan said, if you use Viking's flight booking, which friends have done because it was a good value, they route you to Basel Airport. In either case, Luzern is about an hour away. at Basel Airport, you will need to take the airport bus to Basel SBB station for onward travel.