How would you split five days between Zermatt and St Moritz? The way we have it right now: we arrive in Zermatt on a Saturday evening, stay there for three nights, leaving early Tuesday on the Glacier Express to St Moritz. Get to St Motitz Tuesday late afternoon, stay there two nights, leaving to Zurich on late Thursday.

Would you stay and extra day in Zermatt? Or leave one day earlier? We are a couple in our early 40s interested much more in nature (hiking, mainly) than in city things.

Also, any hotel recommendations in both cities not too far from the train station or city center? Right now we are looking at the Arca in Zermatt and the Schweizerhof in St Moritz.

thanks
FR

Well first, neither is a city. They're both quite small towns that you can walk all around in a half hour. So nothing is far in terms of 'train station or city center'.

Both are also as touristy as it gets. How you split the time really doesn't make much difference in my opinion, one is much the same as the other.

Given your stated interests (hiking) and dislike of 'cities', why did you pick them to begin with? While you can hike from both, you can't avoid the 'city' aspects of both.

Personally, as someone who also likes hiking and loves Switzerland, I would not stay in either. I can understand why someone would want to say ' been there' or 'seen the Matterhorn' but if what I really wanted was to enjoy some of the fine hiking available in Switzerland I wouldn't bother to pay Zermatt or St. Moritz prices just to stay somewhere that I don't particularly want to be in and of itself.

I'd stay in Tasch which is just down the valley from Zermatt and Sils Maria which is just down the valley from St. Moritz. If I felt the need to say 'been there' or 'seen that', I could do so easily but not need to actually stay in either Zermatt or St. Moritz.

Alternatively, I'd skip both and stay in somewhere like the Hasliberg for the entire time and do day hikes every day if I didn't feel the need to say, 'Zermatt, oh yeah, I've been there' but would rather instead say 'we did some great hikes in Switzerland, you have to see and hear the cow bells to really understand what the song, 'The hills are alive with the sound of music' really means.

well, it actually started when we read about the Glacier Express and thought it would be a nice trip. Hence the choice for Zermatt and St Moritz. The chance to see the Matterhorn was a bonus for us.

We'll certainly look at Hasliberg, thanks for the indication. We have not booked anything yet, so still time to change if we decide to.

The Gornergrat Bahn, across the street from the Zermat, station is a nice trip and goes higher up from the town of Zermat (which has only electric and horse drawn vehicles...look down when walking in the street). About a mile out of town is the Sunnegga bahn--gets you to a different section of the alps.

I was just at the Kempinski Grand H�tel des Bains in St. Moritz and enjoyed my stay there very much.

There is a lot to do in and near St. Moritz in terms of winter sports and here is a short look at some options:

What�s Doing in St. Moritz

Ah the Glacier Express. It is indeed a scenic trip FR. I suppose it is as good a way as any to decide where to go on a first trip to Switzerland. But if you are REALLY into hiking then I would focus more on suggestions as to where you could indulge in that activity. You can do so as I said from Zermatt or St. Moritz, you'll just pay more for hotels, etc. to stay there.

Hasliberg was just a suggestion, there are many places to stay that make a great base for hiking. Maybe a bit more research is needed. Here are some good websites to start with.

http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ca/home.html

https://www.google.ca/#q=best+day+hikes+switzerland

Here is a typical hotel we like to look for when on a hiking holiday in Switzerland. It's in Hasliberg but I give it only as an example, I'm not trying to suggest that the Hasliberg is the only or best place to hike in Switzerland.
http://www.gletscherblick.ch/

Family run, friendly and helpful with hiking suggestions, good food. The good food is important in a place like this since there is nothing much nearby and opting for 'half board' makes a lot of sense.

In Tasch, just down the valley from Zermatt, we liked the Walliserhof. The second reviewer wrote exactly what illustrates my point re the difference between Tasch and Zermatt if you really don't want to be in Zermatt itself.http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Hotel_Revi...wiss_Alps.html

Tasch is a 12 minute train ride from Zermatt, runs every 20 minutes and as I wrote, you can easily go for a couple of hours if you want to. OR you can hike from Tasch to Zermatt instead. Look at this site and then download the PDF Panoramic hiking map to see how many ways you could hike from Tasch to Zermatt. http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/ex...ivities/hiking

This kind of information can be found for just about anywhere you choose to go in Switzerland.

Forgot to add, like any of the well known mountains in Switzerland, people are often disappointed when they don't get a view of the Matterhorn due to low cloud cover. You can spend a week in Zermatt and the peak not be clear once. So the longer you stay obviously, the better your chance of getting that perfect view and photograph.

When people write, 'a day in Zermatt to see the Matterhorn', they clearly don't realize they may not see it in it's entirity. LOL