France & Switzerland: What city should we cut out of our trip?

Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Gimmelwald - pick one as a base for this area, not Interlaken (I'd say, stay in the mountains). Stay at least 2 days, 2 nights (another day would be better). Geneva really does not fit, and Zurich is probably not a priority either, except as a place to fly home from. Yes, fly home from. Do not waste a whole day traveling back to Paris. You already are short on time! Fly home from Zurich. Lyon is a toughie, since you've got so many cities already. But Lyon trumps all the cities in Switzerland, imho. Maybe Beaune instead of sprawling Dijon. Consider Bern as a stop enroute to the Berner Oberland, if at all. Leave Beaune in the morning, get off in Berne, see the clock, the old town, the river, the Klee museum, get back on train, continue to Gimmelwald.

Paris 2 days, Dijon 1-2 days, and Lyon 2 days? Lyon is lovely - as is Dijon - but Paris is... whoo. Well - it's Paris! Others will weigh in, but I would vote for giving more time to Paris.

We have faced much of the same decision for our 3-week trip to Barcelona and France. So here's the routing we went through. We will be in Avignon on 9/26 and 9/27. We'll be heading north on 9/28. We'll have a car so we will see a lot of Provence. No need to see Nice and that area. We'll tour a great museum in Grenoble and then spend one night and most of the next day in Lyon. Again, no need to stay longer. We'll then spend the next four nights in Annecy and Chamonix-Mt. Blanc. 2 nights in Beaune and then on to 5 days in Paris. We wish we had an extra night in Burgundy but we gave up some time there to squeeze in Chamonix-Mt. Blanc. For Switzerland, we've been there before. Zurich and Geneva are just too big. Lucerne and the Berner Oberland are our preferred choices. We've stayed in Lauterbrunnen which was great but if we go again, we would choose Murren. The scenery is much better up there at 5,200'.

Adam: Totally agree with you about the ideal would have been an open jaw. Unfortunately we booked a roundtrip SEA-CDG airline ticket a few months ago as we didn't know we were going to even do switzerland. If I change it, it'll be $250 change fee per person (so $500 total) + ticket price. Ouch. I called the airline (Delta) a few moments ago and they it's $364 total per person to change it ($250 change fee + $114 ticket difference). This also extends our trip by a few days which is actually a good thing for us now since we can afford the time. (If we returned on the same date, we'd pay more than $364 per person since the return date is sooner). Wondering if the minimized travel time to return to Paris with the added benefit of extending out our trip is worth the $728 total extra cost. If we were to do this, we could extend the front part of our trip in paris to 4 days, then tack 2 days in Switzerland.

Larry has some wonderful ideas: Annecy and Mt. Blanc as well as Murren.

just got back from the Lausanne to Zurich with Lauterbrunen and Luzern in between. I was goign to skip geneva too but found the old town fun for a half day and lunch (expensive!) The town hall and cathedral was nice. Then jump on the train and go to Lausanne.
Zermatt is great but out of the way a bit. Interlaken is nice but touristy so maybe spend that time in Lauterbrunnen and Gimmelwald (and Murren!) Bern is nice - do a half day (AM from Interlaken en route to Luzern. The golden pass from Montreaux to Interlanken is nice - or skip and go the other way Lausanne to Bern... then interlaken area.

Trevin With apologies to others on the Helpline who read everything as I do, this is a copy/paste from previous postings regarding itinerary questions. Some thoughts: Is there a reason you are only spending 2 days in Paris? You have been there before? If not, it really is unlike any city in Europe or anywhere. Well worth more days. Also, Lyon is great for foodies who have big budgets and is France's 2nd largest metropolitan area. The large squares in the central city are charming but I would not have chosen it but for business reasons. And would not go there again. As you are deciding whether to change your flight plans to open jaw, don't forget to figure out how much it costs to get from your last destination back to Paris.
In addition, as Helpline Posters say, the more you change destinations, the more it costs in money and time. OK, here's how to see how much time it will take to get from place to place and what is left to sight see. You don't want to be on trains all of the time. This is a way to View your itinerary rather than just listing it. Use a paper or online calendar (so you can adjust easily and share). 1 - Put your international travel times on the calendar. 2 - Put train time using RailEurope or other train site 3 - Put the flight time from your last destination in Switzerland. Check Skyscanner.com for times and discount airline prices. To be continued below.

Continued from above. 4 - Don't forget to add these additional time-eating components to get the Real Time Traveling. For Paris, add Customs and Immigration and transport time to hotel.
For other travel days, add time from 1st hotel to airport/train, time to wait at airport/station before departure, and then station/airport to 2nd hotel. Figure half a day, I bet. 5 - Put Travel Day on Calendar for each day you travel from one place to another or take a day trip. 6 - Once you have your itinerary more firmed up, check the major sites you want to see to make sure they are open on the days you are there. For instance, Paris museums closed Mon or Tues, Vatican closed Sun, etc.. And put the dates open and closed on the calendar so you won't forget. RS Guidebooks have a special BOX in the beginning chapters that show a summary of the open/closed days. By doing it this way, I find it easier to See how my time is spent. And then adjust accordingly. I advise my friends to do this to. Often, that is when they have their "Ah Ha" moment. Listing just doesn't do it. Hope this helps! Bobbie

In Switzerland, I would suggest, in order starting at Bern: head to Lac Leman and spent a night or two on the lake, maybe in Vevey. See Chateau du Chillon, maybe old town Lausanne. Take the Golden Pass route to Interlaken and continue into the mountains. Do not stay in Interlaken. Mürren is our favorite for a hiking base; Wengen is also nice. spend at least four days here. Then continue on the Golden Pass route to Luzern for at least two nights. You can reach the Zurich airport in just over an hour from Luzern, so no need to spend a night in Zurich.

My original post is a bit out of date. We ended up extending our trip which gave us more time in both France and Switzerland. In addition, we also cut out Lyon and Dijon and instead of spending time only in Paris and Provence.

Trevin, Now that your original post is outdated, you can edit it to reflect what your new itinerary will be, if you choose. Extra time in Paris is always good. Listen to Kira.
I skimmed the posts, but I'm not sure if you're still flying out of Paris? I second that you should fly out of Zurich. Not much to see and one of the world's most expensive cities, so I never spend much time there. Beaune, on the other hand, would be worth a few days on any trip for me (I'm a wine guy, though). Geneva? Doesn't fit as well, so you can save time there.

Great advice from others. Wengen and Murren are wonderful little towns. Interlaken is good for train changes. We were in Switzerland in June and stayed in Wengen. Bern is nice for a day trip but I would not stay there. Zurich has to be one of the most expensive cities in the world-a tie between Z, London, and Tokyo. We got a hotel on Priceline in order to spend a night in Z. Meals were costly. Never cut Paris too short!

If this helps..... A few yrs ago, my family and I did the following driving trip to Swizterland and France over the course of about 15 days: Flew from NY to Zurich, then spent time in Zurich, Lucerne, Bernese Oberland (with Grindelwald as our home base), Zermatt, Montreux, then drove into France where we spent a few nights in the Loire Valley (Chenonceau was home base), then we ended in Paris, from where we flew home. I thought it gave us a great over-all experience/highlights-type trip, and allowed us to really enjoy both countries at a somewhat relaxed pace. Re: Zurich; I feel like I often see here on RS.com that people are not big fans of it, but I loved it. It's small and charming, but also very cosmopolitan, sophisticated, etc. I would not recommend a ton of time there, but for a night, or 2, it's an enjoyable, world-class city (albeit an expensive one. My home, New York City, is expensive, but Zurich was much more so!) As Rick always points out, if you have somewhat limited time, it's important to eliminate potential redundencies. So, personally, I would pick 1 large city in Switzerland (I'd cut Geneva; was there on a different trip and liked it, but w/ limited time, no need for both Geneva and Zurich on same trip; I'd cut Bern, too; you can leave those for other times). And I agree w/ previous posts re: picking 1 home base for exploring Bernese Oberland (and also agree re: NOT picking Interlaken as that base; Interlaken's more of a gateway to the best of the Alps). Good luck w/ the trip planning!