First time trip to Bavaria and Switzerland

If you are going to be in Bavaria you could use Munich airport. It has a station right in the airport.

In Switzerland a good choice could be Zurich which also has a train station right at the airport and both cities have good worldwide coverage of flights.

Then you could take the train to smaller towns and get around by train. Easy and cheap in both places (but Germany is cheaper than Switzerland.

There are very few places in either Bavaria - which has a very dense and comprehensive train network, or in Switzerland which integrates all the public and private trains, buses and ships in one comprehensive unit.

Congratulations on your anniversary. I'm just a year or two behind.

My suggestions are along the same lines as Nigel mentioned. Would something like this work....

• Fly inbound to Munich - although this is a larger city, you can take day trips to smaller locations such as Füssen where the famous Castles are located.
• Train to Berner Oberland and Lauterbrunnen Valley. This is a perfect place to "avoid large cities".
• Train to Zürich for one night prior to flight home.

You could also reduce the days in Munich and Berner Oberland slightly and spend a few days in Lucerne at the end of your trip, It's a beautiful city and you could take a cruise on the lake, travel to Mt. Pilatus or whatever. It's possible to go directly from Lucerne to the Zürich airport so if your return flight is later in the day, you wouldn't have to spend a night in Zürich.

Nigel, I think there is a crumb of cheese stuck under your exclamation point key.

Some people are just "exclamatory" in their every day life. Frankie seems to have a love of exclamation points as is evidenced in a similar question in the Italy section (!)

Thank you Nigel and Ken for your advise about Munich.