Written by Kathy Englar
As more guests come to visit us in Switzerland, I encouraged my mom (a well seasoned traveller in Switzerland) to provide some tips to those who come visit.

The SBB

You have arrived by plane, but the best choice for a visitor to get around Switzerland is the excellent train system. If you’re subscribed to this blog, you know that Lisa and Freddy have navigated to many out-of-the-way places by train, bus, postal vans, and gondolas. 

A one month Swiss train pass is probably less expensive than renting a car and you can get anywhere (within Switzerland) without stressing about whether to purchase additional auto insurance. You won’t need to worry about parking and navigating in cities and you can get to every ski resort and trail head since the pass covers regional train systems, most buses, and some cable cars. The trains are clean, quiet, timely, and accommodate your recreational equipment. During my April 2022 visit, the trains were busy with backcountry skiers and cyclists and I, too, waited for the train wearing ski boots and my helmet. Each train car in ski country has ingenious rubber ski racks by the door. 

There’s an SBB customer service office in the Zurich airport, so you can buy your Swiss Pass after you collect your luggage, thus saving you from paying for your train ride into Zurich. As advised by their website, we brought passport pictures for our passes.  Download the excellent SBB mobile application in advance and be amazed about how many options you have for train and bus service. In reviewing the departure postings at the Zurich HB, we found 100 departures per hour during prime time - that’s a lot of travel options. Mobile data is excellent all over Switzerland, so we could check train departures from a trail and know whether to pick up the pace or mosey along.

Another on-time departure! Some older trains require you to lift your luggage up a couple stairs, but most like this one allow you to roll your bags on at the same level and have an extender when the door opens so there’s no gap between the platform and the train.

You can ship your heavy items ahead by train. If you’re going skiing but spending time in Zurich before and after, ship your ski bag (weight limit 25 kg) to your destination for 12 CHF for 2-day service or 15 CHF for 1-day service. We were very happy to ship our 20 kg ski bag to the Zurich airport when we left our last ski stop. Editor's note: there are other luggage delivery options, like door to door service. Follow the link above and click around. They also ship bikes!

Downhill equipment is heavy! Leaving Verbier with 120 pounds of luggage with anxiety about navigating these bags on the Verbier city bus, telecabine, regional train, SBB with a transfer - ship skis ahead!!

You can get anywhere, but it’s likely you’ll need to transfer, so do not pack like an Instagrammer (we saw so many Instagramming tourists struggling with huge bags, but I have to admit their supplies paid off because their attire, bags, hair, and makeup looked so great in front of the Matterhorn and Eiger). Our friends, a family of 5 with 9 bags, had 5 transfers between the Zurich Airport and Zermatt because of track work on the more direct route. If that’s your situation and the connection is tight, get yourself and your bags by the door when they call your station.

The trains are almost always on time (except when there is track work.) Some stations are on-demand, so if you need an on-demand stop, find the button to request it. Twice during my trip, I got on the train at an on-demand stop after hiking. It’s amazing that the conductor is ready to handle a stop immediately after exiting a tunnel when he sees you standing by a shelter waving your hand. With so many stations, including the on-demand stops, you can do point-to-point hikes or ski tours without retracing your steps. Whether you’re a fan or uphill or downhill travel, take a train one way.

At an on-demand stop after a point-to-point hike

Everyone is riding the trains/buses: oddly, little kids have two hour school lunch breaks and travel home to lunch and back again by bus.

Hospitality

Lisa and Freddy’s guest room has a blow-up bed (editor's note: it's a pull our sofa that can fit two people if you're comfortable with each other. It's utilitarian and moderately comfortable), but is also their office and gear storage space, so if you’re one of their parents (me), consider staying in a hotel. There are none in the neighborhood, but plenty around the Haubt Bahnhoff (HB), where you’ll emerge from the train from the airport and where you can catch the #7 tram to Lisa and Freddy’s apartment (Zurich city trams are covered by your SBB pass). It's a 16 minute tram ride from HB to their apartment. The HB is also a thriving shopping center where you can buy pretty much anything: electronics (if you forget your power converter), groceries, lunch, dinner, maps, watches.

We stayed in two different hotels that were modestly priced (for Zurich) and sub-5 minute walks from the train station:

As with all hotels throughout Switzerland, breakfasts are in another league compared to US hotels. Hotels with spas generally offer adult only/clothing-free saunas and steam rooms. Note that there are many middle-aged plus spa goers, so it will be a cultural adjustment. Since pools are open to kids, they are clothing-mandatory.

Dining: 

  • No tipping required, so if your food seems 20% too expensive, keep in mind that tipping is minimal
  • Food is better, particularly the dairy products, but across the board
  • Lunch at a ski resort seems to involve the need for a reservation, waitress service and alcohol and espresso, and a long rest from the slopes
  • For vegetarians like me: you can usually find a falafel place and the ubiquitous Coop market has a variety of vegetarian and vegan salads to go
  • Beers are cheaper and when you order a beer, they just bring you one; they won’t read you a long list of what’s on tap and what’s in bottles. Editor's note: it's all 4-5% Lagers. You can get an IPA, but not everywhere
  • Switzerland has a robust wine industry - grapes are everywhere in the Valais
  • Cheese, cheese, cheese: We saw a cheese vending machine in Gstaad, the Coop across from Lisa and Freddy’s apartment has a temperature controlled cheese room, the same Swiss brand of Gruyere cheese we buy at Costco in Reno was so much better (fresher?) and cheaper in Switzerland, and Freddy makes a fantastic fondue (Gruyere and Vacherin).

Grapes growing on every sunny hillside in the Valais

Slopeside dining at Zermatt: generally expensive, often requires a reservation, and not a quick lunch. We had great (but costly) lunches at the Hotel Adler on the Gornergrat side and the Stafelalp under the Matterhorn.

We needed to rest after coma-inducing lunch at the on piste Hotel Adler and quit for the day after a couple more runs. We wised up after that first lunch and split our rosti next time we lunched with the family with three hearty-eating boys

Another note on hospitality: I got through a 3-week trip without changing any money, using my Visa card only. Sometimes the tapping worked, most of the time it didn’t, but the card always worked.

Language Skills

Somehow, the Swiss know by looking at you that you’re an English speaker (is it your Patagonia?) In general, everyone in a customer-facing job in Zurich speaks English, but as a visitor, you will want to know your greetings, please, and thank you in the appropriate language. In German-speaking Switzerland, the trail greeting is Gruezi (pronouned Grits-y).

When crossing from German to French to Italian speaking areas by train, there is an assumption that you magically speak the new language upon reaching a milepost. We traveled by train from Interlaken to Verbier. Between Visp and Sion, the announcements went from German-English-French to French-English-German. That was also true of my Swiss Air flight back to San Francisco: the gate announcements and initial flight attendant announcements started in German, but switched to English when two hours out from San Francisco. I felt loved because the French “Cher Passager” was literally translates to “Dear Passengers” so frequently (as in “Dear Passengers, please make sure you have all your belongings before exiting.”)

All bets are off in French speaking areas. My high school French (sufficient for restaurant ordering and directions) was critical in Martigny and Verbier. I caused confusion searching for our Verbier hotel, the Montpelier, when I pronounced it as I would the home of James Madison in rural Virginia as “Mont-peel-yer” rather than “Mon-Pell-E-A”. I’m assuming that less pervasive English speaking is also an issue in the lakes region where they speak Italian.

Other things you’ll notice:

Zurich is 10 degrees of latitude farther north than San Francisco. If you’re visiting between March and September, it will be noticeably lighter later. On Easter Sunday, it was light in Zurich past 8 PM and the downtown area was mobbed with families enjoying the city, the lake, and the holiday.

If eBikes bother you, grit your teeth. Since car ownership is lower, there is a lot of city usage of eBikes that also make their way to the trails. Lisa and Freddy live below the very popular Uetliburg recreation area which you can access by train every half hour from the HB (recommend riding to 2 stations below the summit and walking up, or the reverse) and the spaghetti bowl of trails are full of eBikes.

Highlights

Meals: While the best meal of our trip was undoubtedly Freddy’s fondue (better than we can prepare at home with credit to both Freddy and the quality of cheese in Switzerland), our best restaurant meal was at the VegiStube in Zermatt. Can you believe there is a vegetarian restaurant in Zermatt? Actually, half the room in the basement of the Pollux Hotel is a different restaurant - they can fill only half a vegetarian restaurant in a famous Swiss ski town.

Best Train Ride: The Mont Blanc Express from Martigny to Vallorcine is a must-ride. It’s hard to believe they were able to build it to begin with, much less in 1906. It’s either in a tunnel, on a bridge, or seemingly suspended over nothing on a steep hillside. Views are not for the feint of heart.

Best Ski Lift: Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, to Klein Matterhorn

https://www.matterhornparadise.ch/en/Experience/Peaks/Matterhorn-glacier-paradise

Thankfully included with your Ikon Pass, this credit to Swiss engineering takes skiers from 9600 to 12000 feet. Each car sports four rows of heated seats and a sound system, and you can pay extra to ride in the crystal cars. It’s the lift you need to take to access Cervinia on the Italian side of the Matterhorn (not included with your Ikon Pass.) From Matterhorn Glacier Express, we took a 7-mile, 6200’ descent (take that, Northstar!) to the Furi station where the snow petered out (still requiring a cable car ride down to the town and denying us more vertical.) Even if you don’t want to ski in Zermatt, buy a ski pass, so you can ride the Gornergrat, the Matterhorn Express, and Matterhorn Glacier Paradise.

Where is this lift taking us? To the little pointy top!

Most Expensive Meal: 76 CHF for two bowls of artichoke soup in Champex. Because of bad weather and avalanche danger in Verbier, we took the regional train to Orsieres and then hiked up 2500 feet of elevation in 2 miles to Champex Lac, which was a dead quiet ski town, even though the lift was still running (with little visibility that day.) Because there was a mural of skate skiers on the outside wall, we wandered into Club Alpin thinking it was a Nordic ski store, but it turned out to be a 5-star hotel with a spa and a Gault & Millau rated restaurant: https://www.auclubalpin.ch/en

We were committed before realizing it was so upscale, so we ordered off the “hiker snack” menu. Those two bowls of artichoke soup came with three courses of amuses bouche: mini cheese balls (the best part of the meal), a surprisingly good cabbage item, and two mini desserts, one of which was creme brulee, each presented by two servers with fanfare. We asked our server if it is always this quiet in Champex and she replied, “You should have seen this place two weeks ago, absolutely packed.” They have a beautiful lake side patio, so when in Champex…

Sparsely populated day with low visibility in Champex Lac

Oddest Tourist Attraction: Bond World at the Schilthorn in Murren

We picked Murren for a ski day because of our zeal to ride train and cable cars (Murren requiring a train to Lauterbrunnen then a cable car to bump up elevation to another three station train line), but little did we realize we were heading to the site of the skiing scenes in the James Bond classic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service:

They play it up big time, considering the movie was released in 1969 and very few of today’s tourists were alive then, but on the other hand, there were at least as many cable car riders wearing sneakers as there were fellow-retirees skiing on a Monday and it delivers a fabulous view of the Eiger, Monsch, and Jungfrau. I resisted the opportunity to buy a Bond Girl t-shirt, but we did take pictures. When we skied out of the building (a steep groomer), two Asian tourists asked if they could take a video of us skiing - it’s so unusual to see a skier at a ski resort?

Me with James at Piz Gloria taking in the Jungrau

James in the WC at Piz Birg - Murren is all in on the theme

Best Postcard Picture Spot - Interlaken

Our hotel was near the Interlaken Ost station, where the trains to Grindelwald and Wengen depart, but the bulk of the restaurants are near the Interlaken West station, which is on the Thunersee. Every night, we walked to dinner along a bike path by the river enjoying postcard views of the Jungrau (and many parasailors.) Interlaken Ost station is next to a large, modern youth hostel and across the street from a Coop, so budget travel opportunities abound.

The Jungfrau from Interlaken at sunset

Published by lisa in Uncategorized