dulciusexasperis

Read some of the comments above by SwissBritMIss and myself re the Graubunden PsiFighter. My favourite hiking area is the Davos-Klosters area as mentioned above. There are 700km of hiking trails in a relatively small area with half a dozen funiculars and cable cars to get you up to higher altitudes for FREE with the area Guest Card. Being willing to spend a bit more doesn't mean you have to spend it. Take a closer look at the two Panorama maps here: https://www.davos.ch/en/summer/mount...teractive-map/ to see how many hiking trails there are in just a small stretch of the valley.

Zermatt claims around 400 km of trails and you can click on the Panorama map here for a closer look. https://www.zermatt.ch/en/Lifts-pist...r-panorama-map
When looking at places to hike in Switzerland, I always look at the orientation of the valleys to determine which sides and how much sun to expect. Hiking in July you might want to stay on the shadier side while hiking in Septermber you might want to find lots of trails that appeal to you on the sunnier side of a valley.

Panorama maps such as the above also make it easy to get an idea of how much up and down you can expect even for those not comfortable reading topographical maps. This is important to consider in terms of your own physical limitations/preferences. For example, looking at the Panorama map for Zermatt, you will see that it is basically a dead end valley that runs downhill from the Matterhorn. So most trails are up or down in general. By contrast, a long sloping valley like Davos-Klosters is up and down to the sides of the valley but also offers many trails that are more or less level closer to the valley floor. The maps also show you the cable cars/funiculars you can use to start or end hikes as well.

Do not underestimate the costs of using cable cars/funiculars to aid your hiking plans. Typical is to ride up somewhere, hike across and then ride down. Or any other version of incorporating a ride into your planned hike. The cost to go from Zermatt up to the Gornergrat is 47 CHF per person return. Riding one way obviously is less and then perhaps you hike across and down into the valley where you catch a bus back to your starting point. Add for the bus fare. My point is that Zermatt does not as far as I know offer any kind of Guest Card whereas other areas do. As I noted earlier in this thread, I estimate the Davos-Klosters card saved us at least $500 in a 10 day stay. Their Guest Card is the best I know of in Switzerland. There are quite a few others but they offer less and I know of no others that get you free rides on all the cable cars/funiculars in the area as well as all local bus/train travel. Besides the actual money savings, there is just something pleasurable about getting free transportation everywhere. LOL

You can find out more about all the various Guest Cards available across Switzerland, here: https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ca/gaestekarten.html

Zermatt might suit your hiking needs for a 5 night/4 day stay. But there are many other places that might suit you just as well and have other advantages to offer. Personally, we do not find Zermatt an ideal hiking destination. You go there to see the Matterhorn in my opinion and yes you can do a day hike or two but if the primary consideration is great hiking for multiple days, there are better choices in my opinion.

Sounds to me like you need to answer to yourself whether you want to find your ideal hiking destination or do you want to see the Matterhorn and include a day hike or two. Nothing wrong with either choice obviously, you just have to choose.

SwissBritMiss

I second this. Zermatt has some truly iconic hikes, but the really beautiful ones are gruelling. Even compared to neighbouring Germany, the same grade hiking routes in Switzerland are definitely harder. But if you're a mountaineer with plans to head up to the Hörnlihütte, then go ahead! The Gornergrat train is CHF98 return at the moment by the way, without a Halbtax card.

One option would be to stay in Zermatt for a couple of nights and then take the Glacier Express (or any trains that run the route) to St Moritz and the Engadin. It's a day long journey, but spectacular and you don't need to book onto the actual GEX train to enjoy the views. St Moritz also offers free mountain railways in the summer if staying overnight for 2 nights and more; the lake may not be as iconic as the Matterhorn, but still a stunning backdrop. Near the Landwasser viaduct which you'll pass en route, in Thusis, Schloss Schauenstein is well worth a visit if you have the cash to spare. By miles the best 3 Michelin * restaurant I have frequented; inventive and playful.

frogster

How used to high altitude hikes are you? Don't forget that the Matterhorn leads up to nearly 14'700ft while the town is at 5'300ft. If you aren't used to thin mountain air and steep hikes, the 5 days might be quite disappointing. Furthermore not every Hotel and Restaurant in town will be open in the early fall...

I'd definitely recommend taking the glacier express for the beautiful views but I'd reconsider staying in Zermatt for too long.
Graubünden is a great alternative for hiking, for flexibility I’d choose a base in St.Gallen. There you’ve got the mountains (The Säntis has some nice hikes) but you’ve also got the Lake of Constance area with some more leisurely walks and swimming. If the weather turns bad you can instead hop on a train to St. Gallen or visit the abbey with one of the oldest libraries in the world (founded no later than 719)

dulciusexasperis

So as you can see PsiFighter, the consensus is that your fitness level and hiking at altitude experience will play a big part in how much you may or may not enjoy hiking in the Zermatt area. The Gornergrat station is at 10,140 feet. Perhaps you can compare that to Mt. Washington, New Hampshire if you are familiar with that, which is at 6,288 feet.

greg5

TBH, the Uetliberg near Zürich from Uto Kulm to Felsenegg can actually be a pretty nice walk on a nice day. ZVV sells the Albis pass which makes it a relatively inexpensive trip (for Switzerland, that is). And you can take the lake ferry back as well for a nice loop trip.

In fact, I was just up the aerial tramway yesterday at Felsenegg. It was pretty nice, if a bit hazy with all of the pollen in the air.

CanuckFlyHigh

Would like to thank everyone for their advice. It allowed me to do a lot of research.

We are ending up as follows:

1 Night Park Hyatt Zurich (arrival day)
4 Nights Park Hotel Vitzneau
3 nights Mont Cervin Zermatt
3 nights Fairmont Montreaux or Beau Rivage Palace (booked both right now - can't decide. Beau Rivage is better, Montreaux is completely free, in an upgraded Lake View Suite )
1 night Four Seasons Geneva (depart early next morning)

PsiFighter37

dulciusexasperis

Take a look at this site PsiFighter. https://www.zermatt.ch/en/Media/Plan...weg-Hoehbalmen Note a couple of things. The list of other hikes under "In the Surroundings" and the link to download the hike in "Tour Information" PDF format just above the 'Surroundings' links. Perhaps the Mark Twain as a first warm-up and then a couple of the others to follow.

Cable cars can indeed induce 'sticker shock'. Look for ways to either avoid them altogether or use them in only one direction, up or down.

Re your original plan, I might still be tempted to skip Chamonix (just don't see a need to move in the 'opposite' direction and then have to move back the other way again}. Instead, I might look at spending time either before or after Zermatt, in visiting the Bettmeralp-Riederalp area and hiking along the Aletsch Glacier which is another very different experience.

Have a look here: https://www.aletscharena.ch/panoramic-maps1/ At the top of the map you see the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger from the back side at the beginning of the glacier. Not the view the majority of tourists ever see of them.

Have a look at some of the hikes listed here: https://www.aletscharena.ch/sports-s...Hiking%20Trail Most are moderate although you can easily chain a few together and add some elevation cllimbs in to them of you want. For us, hiking here is about the view of the Glacier and mountains. It's a more relaxing hiking environment that is for enjoying rather than 'conquering' if you know what I mean. What's to not like about this:

shuigao

Not sure if it's the right topic for this, but here goes. Is my understanding of the Swiss Pass / Half Fare Card validity correct?

From https://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/sbb/d...skarte-sts.pdf

Trips I'm taking that should be fully covered by Swiss Pass
Geneva - Zermatt
Zermatt - Wengen
Wengen - Bern (return)
Wengen - Rigi Katzbald
Rigi Katzbald - Zurich

Partially covered by Swiss Pass
Cable cars from Zermatt to klein matterhorn, gornergrat, etc (50% discount)
Wengen - Klein Schiedegg - Jungfrau train (25% discount)
Wengen - Mannlichen, etc (50% discount)

Alternately, I can purchase the Half Fare card which should give me a flat 50% off for ALL journeys listed above ... right?

KayVeeBee

You are right.

Because of the 50% reduction the HFC gives on the Jungfraujoch railway it is often a better choice if the object is to spend as less money as possible. You can combine the HFC with supersaver tickets for even further savings.
But you can't beat the "hop on any public transport you want whenever you want" convenience of the Swiss Travel Pass.

PsiFighter37

So I've finalized my itinerary...2 days in Geneva, 3 days in Montreux (my wife voted for this over Chamonix - I would have gone the other way, but Montreux looks gorgeous, and I can burn off some of my last Fairmont certificates while here), 5 days in Zermatt, and 3 days in Como. I don't really have much time in Como for eating (we are there for a wedding, so we are scheduled out), but are there specific places to eat in any of the other towns that people would recommend? The only place I have booked so far is dinner at Le Chat Botte in Geneva, which looks great from the pictures. Intensus sounds absolutely phenomenal, but there's zero space even over 1.5 months in advance. Would be great to hear from folks who have been in - and eaten in - this part of the world!

greg5

Entrecôte in Genève is pretty good if you like steak and french fries in Café de Paris sauce. link. They've had the same menu since 1957 or thereabouts. And that's the only thing on the menu. They don't take reservations.

pubsmeister

Please allow me to piggyback on the above conversation. We are heading to Switzerland next month, for 7 days. Family of 4- the kids are 17 and 18 years old. The requirements:
1. Flying in and out from Zurich
2. My daughter needs to head back 2 days early (commitments at home)- plan is to drop her off in Geneva, where I can get her back home on AA miles.
3. What do we want to do? I asked everyone for one thing that they considered an absolute. My responses: a chocolate tour, go hiking, ride a funicular to the top of a picturesque mountain, and a walk on the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge. Based on age and fitness (I'm the rate limiting step) the hikes need to be 5-6 miles or less.

My thought was to go in a clockwise loop, heading south from Zurich towards Zermatt area, over to Geneva, then back up to Zurich. Of course, we hope to stop along the way to do fun stuff. My major questions:
1. Rent a car or use public transportation? With 4 people trains get pretty expensive. And lugging luggage gets to be a pain. I know, travel light, but I know my family- close to impossible!
2. Any thoughts on a city and/or hotel for a "base of operations" for a few days south of Zurich that will facilitate day trips for hikes, including to the bridge? Otherwise we may be staying at a different hotel every night.
3. I was looking at hotel options. For the major brands well known in North America there is no availability. The key issue is need room for four. Of course, many places this requires two rooms, but since I can't use points I'm trying to be careful with costs.
4. Should we just fly my daughter out of Zurich and forget about getting over to Geneva?
5. One daughter is a vegetarian. I presume finding acceptable cuisine for her is not a big deal in the cities, but what about in the countryside?

Any input from the Swiss experts here would be deeply appreciated.

greg5

Driving a car here in Switzerland is fine. Parking can sometimes get a bit expensive, but you can usually find some. In Zürich, though, parking will be pretty expensive.

Skip Genève. It's not interesting enough for a one week trip.

Vegetarian options can usually be found. Actually, in this case, in Zürich there is a great option, with Hiltl being one one the world's better vegetarian restaurants. The buffet is pretty good, but items on the menu can be even better. Usually, I'd say skip Zürich as well and to stay in Luzern, but a dinner at Hiltl is often a highlight of a trip to Switzerland for people who like vegetarian food. Hiltl isn't cheap though.

dulciusexasperis

Generally speaking, I never suggest particular restaurants as I find the idea that we all have the same taste in food as ridiculous as the idea that we all have the same idea as to what is of enough interest to us to want to see/do. Someone may rave about a particular chef while someone else simply says that chef over-salts everything.

Pubsmeister, I never understand why people don't pay more attention to time lost moving from place to place. The shorter your total time is, the more this matters. I don't know how you are counting your '7 days' so you may want to clarify that. If your 'first' day is your arrival day in Zurich, that day to my way of thinking is pretty much a non-day. Even with an early arrival, you will be jet-lagged. I consider arrival days and departure days as 'non-days' when considering how much time I have to work with. The same is true of any day in which I am going to move from one place to another. Even a move that only takes a couple of hours of actual travel time will result in the loss of most of the day in terms of time spent seeing/doing things. So my first question would be,how many full days will you have to work with, not including your arrival/departure days. I suspect it may be 5.

That leads to how best to spend the time you have. I can certainly say that spending a day getting your daughter to Geneva would not make any sense to me at all. Nor would spending time taking her to Zurich airport make any sense to me either. Are you all going to travel with her to the airport and see her get checked-in? That's a waste of 3 people's time. So just what does 'drop her off' actually mean? You could buy her a train ticket from anywhere in Switzerland to Geneva Airport and spend zero time dropping her off. Just how 'travel savvy' is she? I'm having difficulty trying to see any way to have her leave early without it interfering with the limited time you have available for the other 3 of you.

When you say a 'commitments at home', if I take your comment as written, that this is a commitment that means it cannot be avoided/delayed/cancelled, etc. then I would find myself asking if she should even be going with you to begin with or if it wouldn't make more sense for her to stay at home and do what she needs to do there. Or whether you shouldn't postpone/change your trip so you can all go for the maximum amount of time together. Why not simply leave 2 days earlier for example?

Next comes your list of things you want to do. It's fine to ask everyone for one thing but only if you add some practical criteria before asking. For example, I can understand someone having an interest in the world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge. But it will take an entire day to do that one thing and the time it takes to get to/from that area to do it. In other words, you will probably need to be staying in Zermatt, Tasch or Randa the night before, for it to make practical sense. You aren't going to check out of a hotel in Zurich in the morning; take a train(or drive) to Randa; leave your bags in storage at the train station; hike to the bridge and back; check-in to a hotel in Randa or take the train/car on to Tasch/Zermatt to a hotel. That's just not practical. You need to work out just how each day is going to work in that regard. A list is easy, making it work is not so easy.

Then there is the bridge and hike itself. Do you know for sure that none of you have a fear of heights? Crossing the bridge is not for the faint of heart even if you do not. Have you looked at photos/videos of it? https://www.google.ca/search?rlz=1C1....0.5jiBPfv6ENk

You also mention a limit on the hike due to age/fitness. Do you know the circular hike from Randa to the bridge and back climbs and then drops 1000m/3280ft. Have you ever hiked up and down 3000 feet before?
https://www.zermatt.ch/en/Media/Plan...ridge-in-Randa

What does a 'chocolate tour' mean to whoever added that idea? Would 2 hours walking around Zurich and visiting the best known chocolate shops there do? Or does it mean a train trip to Gruyeres like this: https://www.viator.com/tours/Lausann...d23235-2510P39

Presumably, the funicular to the top of a mountain is not limited to funiculars and could also be a cable car or gondola ride instead. That is probably the easiest of your choices to fit in although it may not actually be to the 'top' of a mountain.

Regarding a car vs. public transport, the first question has to be how much travel will you actually do? Given your time limit, I would suggest you should be doing as little moving as possible which will impact your transportation cost comparison between rail and car. Ideally, you would only go from the airport to one destination and pretty much stay there until it was time to go home. That will obviously affect any transportation costs. At the same time, you mention luggage as an issue. To me that brings up the 'rule' my wife and I use in that regard. If you are going to travel by train, each person must be able to lift up into the train, the bag they bring. That means limiting everyone to a 'carry-on size' bag pretty much. Also, in Switzerland, 2nd class tickets are all you need, first class is not necessary at all.

Most people come up with a list of 'must dos' as you have and then try to fit them into a given amount of time. I suggest using a different approach. Decide on a place and then decide what you will spend your time there doing. With your limited time I would look at one destination and plan to explore that one small area. If you are into cities, Zurich, Lucerne or Geneva as a base could work. If you want to be in the mountains then somewhere around Zermatt or the Bernese Oberland perhaps. But picking activities, tours that require you to be in different parts of the country will just result in losing too much time moving from A to B to C. The only place that makes sense for the bridge as an example again, is to stay in the Zermatt/Tasch/Randa area. A day trip to the bridge from somewhere 'south of Zurich' as you ask, (say Lucerne) makes no sense. The Chocolate tour to Gruyeres would be easiest if staying in Geneva and not practical at all if staying in Zermatt. Dropping off your daughter adds another issue as noted. You don't have enough time to visit 'Switzerland', only enough time to visit one small part. Pick a part, not the whole country.

Regarding hotels, my advice is to ignore all the third party booking sites as a start. I never understand why people from N. America want to stay in chain hotels when Europe is full of hotels with character. While third party sites also have those hotels listed generally, the hotels themselves almost invariably offer better prices if you book direct. I always phone hotels directly to get a price and each time I have checked, the usual suspect third party sites are quoting a higher price. Third party sites rely on you being too lazy to do your own research.

For example, again using the bridge as a focus example, check your third party prices against the hotel's own prices here: ZERMATT Hotel - Hotel MATTERHORN