Holidays to Switzerland Travel Podcast Episode 77 Transcript
8 amazing experiences to include in your Switzerland vacation
You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.
Announcer
Are you dreaming of visiting Switzerland? Planning a trip to Switzerland is very exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. How do you choose which of the many scenic cities, towns and villages to visit? Which mountaintop excursions should you take, and what’s the best way to get around Switzerland? And of course, how much of the country can you realistically see within your time frame? If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, this is the podcast for you. This is the Holidays to Switzerland Travel podcast and in each episode your host, Carolyn Schönafinger chats with Swiss travel experts to answer your most commonly asked questions, provide practical tips and take you on a virtual visit to the most popular destinations. And of course, some hidden gems to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland. And you’ll hear plenty of conversations about Swiss cheese and chocolate too. Are you ready to plan your trip to Switzerland? Well, let’s get started.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Hello and welcome to episode 77 of the podcast. It’s wonderful to have you here with me today. It seems a long time ago now, but I was fortunate to spend most of June 2023 in Switzerland. We were blessed with beautiful weather and amazing scenery and experiences. Everywhere we went there was plenty of relaxation involved, but the trip was also a great opportunity for me to visit new places, try out new experiences and refresh my knowledge of favourite places that we revisited again. All this is of course essential to ensure I keep providing you with useful information and inspiration for your Swiss travels. See what I put myself through on your behalf! I also had the opportunity to meet up with some of the guests who who have been on the podcast, including the wonderful moderators of our Switzerland Travel Planning Facebook group, Seraina and Nick. The three of us and our partners met for afternoon tea in Brienz and we chatted about Switzerland for a couple of hours, which was wonderful. I’m very grateful that Nick took time out from his stay in Wengen and Seraina planned a weekend away from Zurich so we could all meet up for the first time.
Carolyn Schönafinger
That’s one of those fantastic travel experiences that sometimes we are able to have and it was just so great. In this episode, I thought I’d share with you eight of the fantastic experiences that I enjoyed for the very first time as part of my grand train tour of Switzerland this year. Later on in the episode, I’ll also give you my thoughts on the Swiss rail passes I used, apps that I found really useful and the new tips I picked up on my travels. Hopefully this will all help you with your Switzerland trip planning. Before we get started, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Switzerland Tourism, the sponsors of the podcast. Have a look at their website myswitzerland.com for loads of info and inspiration for planning your Swiss vacation. If you need the train ride of a lifetime, you need Switzerland. Before I share my new Swiss experiences with you, I’ll just give you a really brief overview of this year’s itinerary. If you’d like to see the itinerary in more detail, head on over to the Show Notes for this episode, where I’ll list it out in much more detail for you.
Carolyn Schönafinger
But our trip started with five nights in eastern Switzerland. We had a night in Bad Ragaz, three nights in Pontresina and then one night in Chur. From there we moved on to the Lucerne/Lake Lucerne region, where we spent five nights, one of which was on Mount Pilatus, and four nights at Beckenreid, which is on the shores of Lake Lucerne. We then spent 13 nights all up in the Berner Oberland. Three of those nights were in Beatenberg, where we’d actually stayed last year for a night, and we really loved it. So we went back, this time for three nights. Then it was back to our favourite place, Lauterbrunnen, where we spent seven nights and then three nights in Grindelwald. Now, you might be wondering why I stayed in both Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald when they’re not very far apart. So keep on listening because that’s one of the top new experiences that I’m going to chat about. We rounded out our trip with three nights in Zurich before flying home. There were lots and lots of highlights and amazing experiences in both the new destinations and in destinations that we had visited before. But there were eight which were new to me this time that really stood out.
Carolyn Schönafinger
And maybe one of these experiences that I’m going to tell you about is something you hadn’t considered. Perhaps I’ll inspire you to include it in your Swiss itinerary. So, without further ado, here are the eight fabulous new experiences that I enjoyed in Switzerland this year. In no particular order. First up was a visit to Tamina Therme, a thermal spa and wellness centre in Bad Ragaz. I’d heard a lot about the centre and I was keen to go and check it out for myself. And I certainly wasn’t disappointed. This is a large thermal spa centre. The water comes directly from the springs of the Tamina Gorge and it’s said to alleviate physical and rheumatic complaints. Now, I was just going there, to be honest, just for some R and R. It was our first day in Switzerland. We’d arrived from a couple of weeks in Austria and Germany, so I was really keen to get to Switzerland and this was the perfect way to start, just with a couple of hours soaking in the various pools. The spa centre has six indoor and one outdoor pools and they all have different temperatures and bubble options, different jets and so forth and whirlpools.
Carolyn Schönafinger
There’s a steam bath and a sauna and you can also book in for a massage or a beauty treatment. We purchased tickets from our hotel and they offered a slightly discounted rate. And there was also in our hotel room, bathrobe, slippers and a bag so we could carry all that over to the spa. And we just spent a couple of hours soaking in the various pools and it was wonderful. I’ve visited a few thermal spas in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe before, but none of them have the range of pools and water temperatures that the Tamina Therme has. The building in which the indoor pools are housed has huge windows and that allows in plenty of natural light. So it gives it a really open, airy feeling. Often I’ve been in thermal spa centres where it feels quite dark and gloomy. This one is definitely not like that. It’s very airy and very light and it was just great. A two hour visit costs 32 Swiss franc per adult. As I mentioned, our hotel offered a slight discount, but I found it to be really good value.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Two new rail related experiences that I enjoyed on this trip were crossing the Landwasser Viaduct and also the Bruscio Spiral Viaduct. Now, I’d been on both the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express before. I haven’t done whole sections of each journey in one go. I’ve only ever done sections, but I’ve never actually crossed the Landwasser Viaduct before, so this was something I was really looking forward to. We took the Glacier Express from Chur to Samedan which is up near St Moritz. And part of that, along that trip you crossed the Landwasser viaduct. So that was quite spectacular. On the return trip we actually travelled that section on a regional train and that was great too. And the reason I loved travelling it on the regional train was because there’s a panorama carriage at the back of the train and the windows come down so you can actually take photos and video without having the glare of the windows. So that was a great experience. The Landwasser viaduct, if you’re not familiar with it, is it’s a 65 metre high bridge, I guess. It’s on arched supports and it goes around a bend and then into a tunnel. And it’s such an engineering masterpiece that it’s actually a UNESCO World Heritage listed site.
Carolyn Schönafinger
So that was a really special experience. The other viaduct that I mentioned is the Bruscio viaduct and it’s a 360 degree spiral viaduct. Again, it’s got arched supports and it’s on the line that the Bernina Express travels on, as is the Landwasser viaduct as well. But the Bruscio viaduct is close to the Italian border. The Bernina Express travels from Chur all the way down to Tirano in Italy and on the sort of close to the, close to the end at Tirano, just before the border you come over the Bruscio viaduct, which is amazing. The viaduct was built to help the train because of the difference in elevation that the train needs to go up. And so this spiral viaduct helps the train to gain 10 metres in elevation within just a very short distance. So as you can imagine, you know, they’re great photo opportunities there. Again, we did the trip to Tirano on the Bernina Express and then we travelled back in the other direction on the regional train where again you could move around in the train and take great photos. So that was two fantastic rail related experiences that I really enjoyed and definitely recommend those.
Carolyn Schönafinger
I know there’s some difficulty at the moment on some dates getting seat reservations on the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express. But if you need to travel on a regional train on that same route, you won’t be disappointed. The scenery is the same and you’ve probably even, to be honest, got a little better opportunity for taking photos on the regional train. So if you want to capture the video perhaps of you going across the Landwasser viaduct or the train, you know, the tail of the train behind you going around the Bruscio viaduct, a regional train offers excellent opportunities for that.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Of course it wouldn’t be a trip to Switzerland without a mountain excursion. And this time there were two that left a lasting impact impression on me. Mount Pilatus and Mount Titlis. Mount Pilatus, which is the closest mountain to Lucerne, is a popular day or even a half day trip from Lucerne. But for something different, I decided to stay overnight on the mountain. I’d seen photos of the beautiful sunsets and sunrises that you can see from the top of Mount Pilatus. And I thought, yep, I need to do that.
Carolyn Schönafinger
And honestly, it was just absolutely fantastic. One of one of the most amazing overnight experiences that we’ve had. We were met, so I was invited by Manuela who was on a previous episode of the podcast talking about Mount Pilatus. She asked me, well, she knew I was going to visit and she asked me would I like to have a bit of a tour guide when we were there. Unfortunately she was away on her annual leave, but her colleague Chris met us at Kriens at the bottom cable car station and took us up to Frakmuntegg, the middle station, where we took part in some of the great activities that are there. There’s a dragon glider, like a fly line. There’s a rope park, there’s summer toboggan run. There’s heaps of things to do there. So we spent a bit of time there and then we hopped into the Dragon Ride, a massive cable car which has incredible views for the last part of the ride up to Pilatus Kulm. Now up here there’s also some activities you can do and some nice walking trails. We were met by an Alphorn player up there. There was yodelers wandering around.
Carolyn Schönafinger
So it was really fantastic. But the real reason that we came of course was for the sunset and the sunrise and it was just fantastic. When we checked in, there are two hotels actually that I should mention that you can choose from to stay at Mount Pilatus. There’s the three star Bellevue Hotel and the four star Pilatus Kulm Hotel. A four course dinner is included with your overnight accommodation. And as we were staying in Pilatus Kulm Hotel, our dinner was in the Queen Victoria Restaurant, which is a Belle Epoque restaurant. And the food was just divine. I will share some photos of that in the show notes. That was wonderful. Then we had been given the sun, sunset and sunrise times by reception when we checked in. So we headed on out and went up to one of the two viewing peaks to watch the sunset. And yeah, it was spectacular, yet something like you’ve never seen before as the sun set over over Lake Lucerne below. Of course then we wanted to see the sunrise as well. So that meant getting up very early. 5:15 I think we set the alarm for as the sunrise was due to occur at 5:36.
Carolyn Schönafinger
So again we rugged up. It was quite chilly because we were 2000 metres above sea level and we headed on up to the other viewing point to watch the sunrise. And I have to say that was probably even more spectacular than the sunset. It was just an incredible experience. After that it was still very early of course, so we went back down to, went into our room, made a cup of coffee and went out and sat out on the Panorama terrace just watching the day begin. And it was just so peaceful and it was wonderful. And the other great thing at Mount Pilatus, too, is that there’s a local ibex population which live on the mountain. I think there’s around 600 ibex, so they often graze and climb around the steep mountain peaks near the top very early in the morning and in the evening as well. So we got to watch some of those, which was fantastic. We concluded our visit to Mount Pilatus by taking the cogwheel train back down to Alpnachstad. Now, this cogwheel railway line up to Mount Pilatus is still the steepest in the world, which is quite incredible. But fortunately for us, some brand new carriages had been put into service just two days before we were travelling.
Carolyn Schönafinger
So we got to experience not only the world’s steepest cogwheel railway, we also got to enjoy the ride in the brand new carriages, which were very swish, let me say. After that, we hopped on a boat from Alpnachstad back to Lucerne, which, that which completes what’s called the Golden Round trip. So it’s a bus from Lucerne to Kriens, the cable, two different cable cars from Kriens via Frakmuntegg up to Pilatus Kulm, and then the cogwheel train back down to Alpnachstad and then a boat back to Lucerne. So you really get every kind of transport option in Switzerland and it’s all in one trip. So it was just absolutely fantastic. We raved about that Mount Pilatus experience yeah, for days and days.
Carolyn Schönafinger
The other mountain that we had never been to before was Mount Titlis. And again, I had Peter from Mount Titlis on an earlier podcast episode. And after chatting to Peter, I thought, yes, I’ve definitely got to go. I guess I put it off in the past because I’m not that keen on cable cars, to be honest. I do have a fear of heights and so I’ve always kind of pushed cable cars, if there’s somewhere else I can go that I can get there by train or cogwheel railway or funicular, I’ll do that. But over the last couple of years, I’ve realised that I just need to work through that fear because otherwise I’m going to miss out big time. So off we went to Mount Titlis. We were staying in Beckenreid, as I mentioned earlier, it’s on Lake Lucerne, so it was an easy bus ride. To Stans and then the train from there directly to Engelberg. In Engelberg we walked across to the cable car station and took the cable car up to an intermediate station called Stand and there we boarded the rotating cable car, which was a bit scary for me, but I did it. The Titlis Rotair, which takes you from Stand up to the summit, mount Titlis summit is at 3,000 metres above sea level, so it was fairly chilly. But the advantage is that there’s snow all year round and there’s a glacier up there. So for folks who haven’t seen snow, this is a perfect mountain to visit. Again, there’s plenty of things you can do up there from the main summit area.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Where you arrive from the Rotair cable car we took the Ice Flyer chairlift, which is a six seater chairlift that you sit in and your legs dangle down. So again, that was a little scary for me, but I did it. So we took the Ice Fly chairlift. I think the ride is about 10 minutes from memory. And when you get there you’re at what’s called the Glacier Park. There’s snow tubing you can do, there’s sledding and there’s the Cliff Walk which you can cross. It’s a suspension bridge that crosses two points sort of on the mountain where you’ve got this big abyss below. Very spectacular. And yes, I did brave that as well. All those activities are free because you do need to pay for the Ice Flyer chairlift, which is around 12 Swiss franc for your return ride. But you can have as many goes on the snow tubing and sledding as you like and cross the Cliff Walk as often as you like as well. Back near the main station is a glacier cave which is really interesting to walk through as well. I should say also that the day we visited Mount Titlis the weather was just incredibly good.
Carolyn Schönafinger
The skies were so blue we could see for absolute miles in every direction. There was just huge mountain peaks. It was one of those days that will stick in my mind forever, I think. After lunch at the top of Mount Titlis, we then took the cable cars back down to one of the other intermediate stations which is called Trubsee. Here there wasn’t any snow on the ground here because we were much lower down but there’s a beautiful lake there and the wildflowers were out and it was just wonderful. We spent about an hour strolling around the lake. There’s playgrounds there for kids. There’s a fly line, Zip line that we went on and plenty of picnic areas and, yeah, just a wonderful experience. I think the thing that was so good about Mount Titlis was that we sort of had two kind of experiences in one, you get the snow and the glacier experience at the top, and then you’ve got the, you know, the more relaxed, I guess, nature. Well, of course, knows nature, but you know what I mean. It was just totally different to be able to stroll around the lake with, see the wildflowers and have the mountain backdrop there as well. So Titlis is another fantastic mountain that I highly recommend you visit.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Now, sticking on the nature theme, a visit to Giessbach Falls on Lake Brienz was another first for me this year. I’d seen the falls numerous times before as I cruised between Interlaken and Brienz, but I’d never actually hopped off the boat to go and visit the falls. Last year I was hoping to, but the day we were cruising, the weather was pretty poor, so I decided not to do it. But this year I made it a priority. So we arrived by boat from Interlaken and then took the funicular, which is the oldest funicular in Europe, by the way, from the boat pier up to the Grand Hotel Giessbach. Here you have stunning views of the thundering waterfalls. The Giessbach stream plunges down from above in about 14 steps, so it results in 14 different waterfalls which end up flowing into Lake Brienz. There’s a circular trail which starts from the hotel and leads you through the forest to the various steps of the waterfall. So you can, you can go and visit as many of these different sort of steps of the waterfall as you like.
Carolyn Schönafinger
There’s a bridge to cross. There’s a point where you can walk behind the waterfall. There’s another spot where there’s a beautiful sort of a pool. Yeah, it’s really amazing. And we visited after there’d been sort of about a month of rain. So the power of the water was, yeah, just incredible. We had lunch on the hotel terrace, and just sitting there on a beautiful sunny day with views directly to the waterfall was amazing. And then we took the funicular back down to the boat pier and cruised on back to Interlaken by boat. And you can also get to Giessbach Falls by car or by bus, if you’d rather not travel by boat. But it really is a beautiful spot. Very relaxing and, yeah, just great to see the power of the water.
Carolyn Schönafinger
The next experience that was new to me, which was just one of the best things I did on the whole trip was the hike from, or the Panorama hike from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg. Last year we hiked from Eiger Glacier to Kleine Scheidegg and we just absolutely loved it. The views were incredible. So this year I was determined to hike from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg along the Panorama Trail.
Carolyn Schönafinger
And if you’re not familiar with Mannlichen, it’s a mountain which is located above Wengen in the Jungfrau region. And from up there you just get fantastic views of the Bernese Alps, including the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. And it can also be, well, it can be reached by cable car from both Wengen and from Grindelwald. From Manlichen, the hike to Kleine Scheidegg takes around an hour and a half, but of course that’s if you’re not stopping too often to take photos of the incredible views. It’s an easy walk. There’s only a couple of very slight uphill and downhill sections and the path is really well made. If you’re walking towards Kleine Scheidegg as I did, so starting in Mannlichen, the north face of the Eiger is, it’s almost always in view. And as you get closer to Kleine Scheidegg, the Monch and the Jungfrau also appear. And I was really fortunate to hike the trail on a day when the sky was totally blue and those three iconic snow capped peaks were just totally free of clouds, so it was truly breathtaking. And one thing that I noticed this time, which I probably had never noticed before, despite all the times I’ve been in the Jungfrau Region, I think every time I’ve been there before, there’s always been some cloud on at least one of the mountains.
Carolyn Schönafinger
This time there was absolutely no cloud at all. And you could even pick out Top of Europe, the Jungfraujoch. So the bit of a saddle that is where what’s known as Top of Europe sits between the Monch and the Jungfrau peak. So it was just amazing to actually see all that and think, wow, finally I’ve got to see it cloud free. Unfortunately, my husband had a foot injury the day I did this hike, so he couldn’t come with me. But I’d raved about it so much that a week later, when his foot was healed, we both hiked the Panorama Trail again in the same direction, from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg and it didn’t disappoint the second time around either. It was just as good as it was the first time, the hiking trail. Even though I was hiking by myself that first time, there was plenty, I was never worried, I guess you could say, there was always, there was plenty of people out hiking as well. Couples, families, people with their dogs. As I said, it’s a very well made path. It’s easy, it’s suitable for everyone. There’s nowhere to buy food or anything along the way, so if you want to take some food with you, you need to do that. But there is places where you can fill up your water bottle and there’s also a couple of portable toilets along the route as well. Definitely a hike that I would recommend to anyone.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Now, on all of our previous visits to the Jungfrau Region, we’ve stayed in Lauterbrunnen. We fell in love with Lauterbrunnen 35 years ago and we still love it as much today as we did back then. But on this trip, as we were spending 10 nights all up in the Jungfrau Region, we decided to try something new and stay in Grindelwald for the last three nights. We rented an apartment in Lauterbrunnen for the first week and then we relocated to the Hotel Spinne in Grindelwald, which has an infinity pool. Staying in the hotel was a nice change from having self catering accommodation and it was fantastic to have a beautiful pool with a spectacular view of the Eiger to come home to at the end of a busy day of sightseeing. It was a real treat and a very nice way to end our stay in the region. The pool is not very large, but it’s just wonderful. If you can imagine you’ve been out hiking during the day or you’ve been on an excursion to Jungfraujoch, or you’ve been into Interlaken, how good is it just to come home and know that there’s a beautiful heated infinity pool waiting there for you with incredible views?
Carolyn Schönafinger
Part of, or next to the pool in the, sort of, in the entry area, are some nice lounges where you can just spend a bit of time relaxing. And it also has huge windows that look out to the views as well. But of course the pool is the main attraction and it was absolutely fantastic to be able to spend an hour or two in that at the end of a busy day.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Well, if any of those eight experiences have piqued your interest and you’d like to know a bit more, I’ll include links to all of them in the show notes for this episode so you can find out more and perhaps book yourself in for one of those excellent experiences as well.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Throughout our travels in Switzerland, we travelled entirely by public transport. We used a 15 day first class Swiss Travel Pass from day one to day 15 and then we used a 10 day first class Berner Oberland Pass from day 16 to day 25. On the day that we travelled from Grindelwald to Zurich, which was day 25, our Berner Oberland Pass covered the trains all the way from Grindelwald to Interlaken and onto Lucerne and we only had to purchase a ticket from Lucerne to Zurich, as I did last year.
Carolyn Schönafinger
I found both the passes to be absolutely fantastic. The convenience that they offer, allowing you to hop on and off almost any train, as well as buses and boats, makes travelling so easy. And the Berner Oberland Pass also includes rides on more than 25 mountain railways, cable cars and funiculars so we really made the most of that and often went on a particular cable car more than once. As you might recall, we I did the Mannlichen Kleine Scheidegg hike twice so I needed to go on those cable cars at least twice as well. So having a pass meant that I could just, yep, go and show my pass, hop on and I didn’t have to fork out any additional money. I mentioned that we had first class passes and I’m often asked if buying a first class pass is worth it or is a second class pass sufficient? Well, second class travel on Swiss trains is absolutely fine, but in my experience if you are travelling during June, July or August, it is definitely worth paying a little extra for a first class pass.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Second class carriages were very busy during June this year, but there was only one occasion when we couldn’t find a seat in first class. And the only time this happened was at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon when we hopped on the train to go from Brienz to Interlaken. And this was probably my fault because I should have known that that was peak travel time. It was late afternoon on a Sunday and also a large tour group had just got off the boat cruise in Brienz and boarded the train to return to Interlaken. So for that very short ride of about 20 minutes, we didn’t have a seat, we just had to stand. But on every other train ride in the whole month we were in Switzerland, we were always able to find first class seats. So I think if you’re travelling June, July, August, definitely consider purchasing your first class pass. If you’re not familiar with the different Swiss rail passes that are available, you can listen to episodes 17 and 46 of the podcast and there’s also lots of articles on the website holidaystoswitzerland.com and I’ll include links to all of those in the show notes as well some of the tips that I picked up from my trip this year which might help you with your trip planning.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Firstly, know the time of the last cable car. We were staying in Beatenberg in our hotel. We had finished dinner and it was about 9 o’clock at night and a couple came in absolutely sweating, very red in the face, quite upset. The hotel staff approached them, you know, what’s the matter? They had been up on, had gone up to Niederhorn on the cable car from Beatenberg and didn’t realise that the last cable car left at 5pm or 6pm or whatever time it was, missed the last trip of the day and so they had to hike down the mountain. They apparently both had bad knees before this, so it took them a long time to walk down. Mind you, it is, it’s a very well made path. I did that hike myself. But because they didn’t know the last, the time of the last cable car, they missed it and they put their holiday plans into disarray for that day at least. So always check the time that the last cable car down the mountain departs. Likewise for trains and mountain railways and funiculars and so forth. But just keep on top of that information, which of course you can find on the SBB Mobile app and in many of the mountain stations that you go to there’ll be big signs posted listing the time that the last cable car departs. So please keep on top of that.
Carolyn Schönafinger
It’s also great to know how to check the timetables or if you’re unsure, ask a staff member before you board the boat or the train or whatever. We were on a cruise on Lake Lucerne. We were travelling from Lucerne back to Beckenried where we were staying, and the couple next to us after the boat had pulled away from the pier said to us, is this the one hour round trip cruise? Well, no, it wasn’t. This was going to take an hour and a half just to get to Beckenried and then it was going on further before it returned. So we had to tell them that they would need to get off at the next stop, which was actually the Swiss Museum of Transport stop, then take another boat back to Lucerne to the main pier and then hop on another boat which did the one hour round trip cruise. So that added additional time to their trip which, if they had have checked the timetable or asked a staff member, they wouldn’t have wasted that additional time.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Another tip is to remember to activate your Flex Pass. If you have purchased a Swiss Travel Pass Flex, you need to activate the pass before you start travelling on each day. And the instructions come with the pass and we also have those on holidaystoswitzerland.com. We were on board a train, I think it was coming from Engelberg back to Stans, and the ticket inspector came around, asked this couple to show their passes. So they showed all their tickets. So they showed their Swiss Travel Pass Flex, but they hadn’t activated for that day of travel so they had to pay not only a fine, but also the cost of that trip. So please make sure that you activate your Flex Pass each day before you travel. If you just have a consecutive day Swiss Travel Pass, you do not need to activate it. You should also check that you’re sitting in the correct class, whether it be on a train or on a boat. If you have a second class ticket or a second class pass and you are sitting in first class, you will be asked to move. And keep in mind also that if you have a second class ticket, you aren’t even allowed to stand in first class, so you will be moved on.
Carolyn Schönafinger
If you’ve got a lot of luggage and you’ve sat down in the wrong carriage, that can be quite a nuisance if you’ve got to move everything. So make sure you’re sitting in the right carriage or in the right area of the boat beforehand. Each of the trains in Switzerland that has two different classes, first and second class, will have a big number one or a big number two on the outside of the carriage, so you know what class that is. And on boats, first class is always upstairs and you’ll usually see signs posted by the stairway saying, first class upstairs.
Carolyn Schönafinger
And yes, you can drink from the water fountains in Switzerland. Switzerland has thousands and thousands of water fountains throughout the country. In fact, there’s 1200 alone just in Zurich. And on the rare occasion that there’s a sign posted saying the water is not potable or not drinkable, you can’t drink from it. In every other case, you absolutely can. And we were asked quite a few times when we were filling up our water bottles, oh, is it safe to drink the water? Well, it absolutely is. It’s the purest water in the world so definitely don’t go and buy water, fill up a drink bottle from one of the many fountains.
Carolyn Schönafinger
One of the things I noticed this year in Switzerland and yes, it was quite busy in June, particularly In Lucerne and in the Jungfrau Region. That means that the way you behave can have an impact on lots of other people so please be mindful of others when you’re travelling. And a couple of things I noticed that I urge you not to do, to take too long when you’re taking photos or selfies if there are other people waiting. Of course, this could be a once in a lifetime experience for you and you want to get that amazing photo to record your holiday memories. That’s only natural, we all want to do that. But please don’t spend 5 minutes, 10 minutes in the same position taking multiple photos when there are other people waiting to do the same. They might be on a tight schedule or they may need to be somewhere else in a hurry. So take your photos, be respectful, and then when all those people have disappeared, go back and take some more.
Carolyn Schönafinger
The other thing that I noticed quite frequently was people having phone conversations with their phone on speaker. No one else wants to hear your conversation, so please don’t have it on speaker when you’re making or receiving a call. And sorry if that sounds a bit bossy, but I think to ensure that we all have a fantastic holiday, just being a bit respectful and mindful of those couple of things can make a huge difference.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Well, that’s a wrap of my latest trip to Switzerland. I hope you found the info that I’ve shared here helpful and that I’ve inspired you to add a destination or an experience that you hadn’t previously considered to your itinerary. I did mention earlier that I was going to tell you about some of the apps that I found quite useful in my trip. And the two apps that I used all the time were the SBB Mobile app, which has the timetables for all the public transport throughout Switzerland so you can check times and fares for trains, mountain railways, cable cars, boats, buses – absolutely fantastic. You cannot get around Switzerland without that, in my opinion. And the other one is the MeteoSwiss app, which has probably the most accurate weather forecast that I have been able to find for Switzerland. It can change quite frequently, so if you’re planning to do something in the afternoon and you look at the weather forecast in the morning, do check it again before you set off in the afternoon, because the weather in the mountains can change very regularly. But those two apps are definitely a must have on your phone if you’re visiting Switzerland.
Carolyn Schönafinger
If you’re interested in seeing my itinerary in more detail and to find out where we stayed in each location, I’ll include a link to the detailed version of that itinerary in the Show Notes and you’ll also find links to articles on many of the destinations I visited, as well as the rail passes and some of the other things that I’ve mentioned in the episode. And don’t forget to visit our shop where you’ll find regional guides, an itinerary planner, our online Swiss Rail Pass calculator, and lots more to help with your trip planning. And the link to the shop will be in the Show Notes too. You can find the show notes at holidaystoswitzerland.com/episode77
Carolyn Schönafinger
Thank you very much for joining me today. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I would be extremely grateful if you could leave a short review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. That way we can reach more folks who are planning their very own dream trip to Switzerland just like you.
Carolyn Schönafinger
Until next time, tschuss.
Announcer
If you’d like more great resources to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland, there are lots of ways to connect with us. Visit our website holidaystoswitzerland.com Sign up for our monthly newsletter, or join our friendly, helpful community of past and future travellers in our Switzerland Travel Planning Group. You’ll also find the links to connect with us in the Show Notes for this episode. Show Notes and a list of all previous episodes are available at holidaystoswitzerland.com/podcast
Announcer
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You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.
