I usually get confused when people ask me a question whether a 3 day or 5 day trip to Switzerland would be sufficient to cover it, or more days are required.
Sure you can cover a few known landmarks & a few known destinations in a 3-day or 5-day trip. But I don’t think one can do justice to Switzerland by just visiting a few tourist spots in a week.
Yes, Alps are beautiful. Jungfrau, Mount Titlis, Lucerne and Interlaken are beautiful places. But that’s not the end of Switzerland.
Usually people plan a trip to Switzerland in a predictable way. Booking flights or trains, booking a hotel or a cottage in a base location like Lucerne or Interlaken, visit 2-3 peaks like Jungfrau or Mount Titlis each day, visit a lake, have a typical Swiss food like fondue and that’s it. Is that really it? I don’t think so.
To me, driving for over 4 hrs from Geneva to Interlaken via Saanen (not using the motorway) is more fun than actually being at Interlaken. Strolling in Zermatt city would be much better than visiting theZermatt peak. Driving around twin lakes near Interlaken would be more enjoyable than being at the top of Jungfrau.
Visiting lesser known sunset point over Lake Geneva, stopping at a lake side parking on the road to Interlaken, roaming around the “no vehicle” area of small towns like Sion or Fribourg, driving to Simplon pass, visiting beautiful Lugano miniature land, strolling in Zermatt town, relaxing on Montreux lake side, visiting city in a castle – Gruyere & a nearby cheese factory, standing on top of the great Emosson lake dam are few of the things that I think most of the tourist avoids or ignores, knowingly or unknowingly. This happens may be because of time limitation.
I’m not saying that visiting well known popular spots isn’t fun. Believe me, it is. But there is much more to this beautiful country.
Of course walking on busy streets of Bern is good. But even better is to visit the same streets during late evening when all the shops are closed, with a very few people around and everything lighted up. Watching moon lighting up the river side church in Bern would be even better.
Sure watching Geneva’s famous Jet fountain is exciting. But more exciting is driving by the Geneva lake (again avoiding motorway), from Geneva till Villeneuve.
Yes, visiting Schilthorn top is nice. But even nicer would be drive from Interlaken to Grindelwald.
Quite a number of well known spots are located around Zurich and Bern. So, many of the tourists concentrate around that area, and leave south-west and south-east part which has quite a lot to offer as well.
Switzerland has three regions – French-speaking, German-speaking & Italian-speaking. Visiting these three different regions is also refreshing & one can observe diversities – road signs, announcements, food offerings and so on.
These days busy touristic shopping places are easy to find everywhere. But hard to find are small, peaceful, quite places with relaxing atmosphere, friendly people & something new to offer. Switzerland has lots of such places.
I agree that my idea of exploring Switzerland involves lots of travelling by car. But I can’t help it. I think that’s the best way to enjoy Swiss. I didn’t like going around train that much, because they gives you a very restricted view. There are a few handful really scenic train routes (Golden Pass for example). But with car one can explore much more.
Touristic places do offer quite a lot to the visitors. But they do tend to take out the natural friendliness of the place.
That’s why, according to me, the best way to enjoy & explore Switzerland would be to hire a car & set out for a journey of the life. One can visit a number of exotic low-profile places during the day, spend the night at a destination and start moving again the next day. Yes, finding places to stay at lesser known towns might be a bit difficult, but it’s not impossible with little bit of planning.
