Switzerland, 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022. Itinerary at at glance.

Sharing my trip to Switzerland. An enjoyable trip after 2 years of non travelling.

To me, travelling is another kind of learning journey. Learning journey comes in 2 phases.

1. Theory - When planning the itinerary and searching for information of the country.

2. Praticum - When travel takes place. The real learning journey takes place.

From snowy mountain top, lakes, waterfall and a date with the clouds in Switzerland. Sharing our learning journey in switzerland during summer. 

1. Switzerland 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022 - Getting to know Switzerland's train as a tourist.

Our main transportation for the whole trip was done via train. Having bought the train pass was a correct decision. On our trip, we learnt so many things about the train there. Click this link to find out more.

2. Switzerland supermarket, Switzerland shopping, what to eat in Switzerland. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022. 

Every day, we shopped at different supermarket for our drinking water, dinner and snacks. Click this link to see what we bought, ate and shopped.

Our itinerary.

My mind map started from - 1st location that requires the most travelling time from airport since our flight will arrive Zurich in the morning 8.30am. The last location nearest to the airport so that we need not wake up so early to catch our plane since we need to reach airport by 9.15am in the morning.

Keeping in mind that Switzerland is known for its mountains and lakes. So I must include 1 mountain stay, 1 lake stay and 1 city stay to complete our trip.

Eventually, I ended up with Zermatt as our first place of visit, being the furthest away from Zurich airport, then we traveled down to Interlaken, then to Zurich. 

So lets gooo......

1. Arriving Zurich, Switzerland 1/9 day trip 25Aug to 2 Sep 2022. 

Sharing a little experience we have from flight to airport and to train.

2. Bern, Switzerland Day 1/9 - 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

Bern was not in my visit list. It was this Zytglogge performance that prompted me to do a stopover while on the way to Zermatt. We ended loving this place.
Click out this link to find out our short trip details.

3. Zermatt, a valley with lots and lots of hotels and resorts.

Our very 1st place of interest - the mountain - Klein Matterhorn. We based ourselves in Zermatt for 2 nights, an elevation of 1,620m at the foot of Klein Matterhorn. I watched plenty of youtube videos as research for this place and youtubers seems to praised how beautiful and enjoyable was the train ride up Zermatt. Here was our experience.
The following links records what we encountered and our thoughts.
a. Arriving Zermatt, Switzerland Day 1/9 - 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022 .

b. Hotel & Solebad Arca, Switzerland Day 1 to 3 -  25 Aug to 2 Sept 2022.

c.  Klein Matterhorn, Switzerland. Day 2/9, 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022. 

d. A short hike at Zermatt, Switzerland. Day 2/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022. 

People who have been to Switzerland via tour group would ask me why I did not visit Jungfraujoch. The reason is very simple. Most tour group will bring you to Jungfraujoch making it a crowded place. Also, it cost more than CHF30 per ticket to visit Jungfraujoch instead of Klien Matterhorn. To me, one snow mountain vist for an experience is good enough. So I chose to visit Klein Matterhorn for less crowd and $$$ spent.

4. Spiez, Switzerland. Day 3/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022. 

Spiez Castle on Lake Thun.
Time to move to the lakes of Switzerland after 2 nights of mountain experience. Zermatt was too bright for stars watching. So we hope our hotel in Ringgenberg which is located at Lake Brienz will not disappoint us. To travel from Zermatt to Ringgerberg, we need to transfer our train at Spiez Station. So might as well, have our lunch here and walk around. Click this link for what we did at Spiez Train station area.

5. Ringgenberg.

Located at Ringgenberg Train station, Ringgenberg See Ferry Point and Post Bus station, we visited castle, did a litte hike at trails along the lake and enjoyed our hotel stay. A very Swiss like, quiet village that we love. Suprisingly, I cannot do much research about this place in the social media. So we decided to just go with the flow.
I decided to book Hotel Brienzersee for the lake view and used this as a based for our next 2 days tour. I have planned a day to explore the villages around lake Brienze, and another day for Grindelwald First for some fun activities.
Below are the links to our trip here-
a. Hotel stay - Hotel Brienzersee, Ringgenberg, Switzerland, day 3 to 6.  25 August to 2 Sep 2022. 
b. Ringgenberg, Switzerland. Day 3 to 6. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.
c. Ringgenberg Castle Ruins, Switzerland. Day 3/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

 

6. Sunday, 28 Aug 2022, day 4. The plan was to relax a little, visit Giessbach Falls and Iseltwald Village that is located within Lake Brienz and if we manage to finish these 2 places early, may visit Lauterbrunnen. Around 3pm at Iseltwald, the sun was so hot that we decided return to hotel to rest. It was very tiring walking under the hot hot sun. Below links share our experience there.

• Giessbach Falls, Switzerland. Day 4/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sept 2022.

Giessbach Falls.

A place I found from watching youtube and recommended by a Swiss youtuber.

• Iseltwald, Switzerland. Day 4/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.



Iseltwald pier.
A place made famous by the Korean Drama"Crash landing on you".
Is this place worth to visit?

7. Grindelwald First, Switzerland. Day 5/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

Grindelwald-First.
An unexpected fun filled place with breathtaking mountain view. A good place to visit not only for sighseeing but for some adventure too.  The train ride from Ringgenberg was less than 1 hour. The above link shared our experiences here.

8. Zurich.

30 Aug 2022, we have reached the last 4 days of our trip. How fast. Time to move on to our 3rd base. Zurich.

River Limmat of Zurich.
A base for our last 3 nights in Switzerland. Though a good base as it took less than 1 hour to reach Rhine Falls and less than 15 minutes to Airport, we would prefer Bern if we need not reach airport in the morning on the day of departure.  This link records our experience here.

9. Rhine Falls, Switzerland. Day 7/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

Rhine Falls, Switzerland. 31st Aug 2022.

Though it was raining in the morning we decided to go ahead with our plan thinking that Rhine Falls may be another tourist trap, so perhaps we just pay a short visit to see how it is and proceed to our shopping at Bern. We encountered some hiccups for the train ride but still managed to figure our way to Rhine Falls. The trip turned out to be so unexpected, such an amazing place. A must visit place at least once in a life time.

10. Shopping at Bern, Switzerland. Day 7/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

Shopping in Bern 31 Aug 2022.

Munot Fortress was supposed to be our itineary after Rhine Falls. What is holiday without shopping? We were disappointed that we cannot do any good shopping in Zurich, so we decided to exchange shopping for sightseeing. This is the advantage of travelling free and easy instead of following tours. Was glad we got what we wanted and had a stress free shopping in Bern.

11. Stanserhorn, Switzerland. Day 8/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

Stanserhorn.

We took a train from Zurich HB to Lucerne, changed to a local train to Stans Station, took the vintage funicular through blooming meadows and the world's first open top aerial cable car to the peak of Mt Stanserhorn. We did not expect something free can be so beautiful. Well, free meaning all included in our Swiss Travel Pass. 

12. Lucerne, Switzerland. Day 8/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

It was already after 3.30pm after we reached Lucerne train station after our trip from Stanserhorn. Since we need to make a train transfer her to Zurich, might as well pay a visit.
Yes, another beautiful place, click here to check it out.

13. Goodbye Switzerland. Day 9/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

 A trip that we planned and waited for 4 months has ended today. Oh, how I wished we can have a longer itinerary. Even on our last day, we learnt something new today about the train system here.

Switzerland in my opinion.

Actually 8 days travelling from one place to another is enough for us. It would be good if we can add 2 more days for shopping before going home, that would be great.

Overall, we should be able to make it here with a SGD5K budget per person for 9 days. If we travel during off peak, the SGD5K can do more days.

Accommodation wise, would be better to stay in Bern or Lucerne instead of Zurich cause I prefer a less crowded place.

Yes, a place we should visit once in our lifetime.