Floating the Idea: Switzerland by Train
I wanted to do a winter holiday in February. What did I want from my experience? I wanted to admire the beauty of snowy landscapes, to feel the sense of adventure as I ascended up mountains, to enjoy the thrill of snow sports. I wanted to explore historic cities, to experience the taste of quality beer, chocolate, pastries. I wanted to gate-crash local festivities. As I’m sure you are fully capable of reading article titles, there’s no prize for guessing which country offers all this – Switzerland!
Culinary Delights: Chocolate, Cheese, Beer
Switzerland tussles with Belgium for the title of master chocolate connoisseur, with both Lindt and Toblerone originating from Bern, the historic capital of Switzerland. I bet that out of all the times in your life you have greedily tucked into some Toblerone, you never once noticed the silhouette of a standing bear in front of the Matterhorn Mountain on the logo. That’s because Toblerone originated in Bern, whose symbol is a brown bear. I know a lot of facts about bears (I really like bears), yet that was news to me. It’s about as exciting as trivia gets to be honest.
Aside from these classics, I’d highly recommend a visit to a Villar’s Chocolate shop (if you happen to visit Bern or Fribourg), where I guzzled down a thick, pure, hot chocolate straight from source and bought a delicious bar of ‘fusion’ chocolate, a mixture of milk and dark cocoa (weighted in favour of milk chocolate). I had no idea at the time how rare this brand was, had I of known I would have bought at least ten bars! Alas, I have just a fleeting memory, the briefest romance, a most passionate and heartfelt fling. Yeah, I need a girlfriend.
Aside from chocolate, Switzerland is famous for its cheese. In my five days in Switzerland, I must have tasted 10 different types of cheese. Now, in England I wouldn’t ordinarily do that in a year, although I suppose it would be easy enough given the motivation. But, in Switzerland, eating only 2 different cheeses per day is probably criminal, or at least socially embarrassing.
I could have tried a lot more, but I didn’t have the sole aim of eating my body weight in cheese then not being able to walk at all. I initially tried to create a profile comparison of the cheeses I did try, but it proved easier said than done. Explaining the taste of cheese is difficult without resorting to the rather unhelpful statement, ‘’tastes like cheese’’. Adjectives such as strong (its Switzerland, all cheese there is ‘strong’), creamy, crumbly, that’s about as far as a self-confessed amateur gets.
Is Switzerland well renowned for beer? Well, not particularly. Belgium definitely wins that round. But I’m happy enough to know I’m trying local beers, even if their taste is nothing really new. I’m also pretty happy to collect a few new novel beer mats as free souvenirs. On the topic of alcohol (why must it always come to this?), in winter you also have to try some mulled wine (gluhwein). It’s the perfect warming accompaniment to the cold nights.
Picturesque Scenery: Snowy Mountains, Blue Lakes, Green Grass
When it comes to scenery, Switzerland is throwing a lot of punches and landing every single one of them. Lakes? Left hook. Forests? Body shot. Old towns? Right hook. Mountains? Upper cut. Knock out. Switzerland, weighing in at 40,000 km², still undefeated. Tyson Fury eat your heart out.
But seriously, the scenery was what led me to Switzerland most of all. I knew Switzerland was famous for its excellent train network, which conquers all obstacles in its path and always arrives precisely on time. It has perhaps the most scenic train routes in the world. I knew that in two days I could be exploring a quaint old town one minute, then crossing a lake to climb up a mountain the next. The following two days, I could do it all over again somewhere new.
Having said that, I knew that with time and budget restraints that I needed to hammer out a realistic travel plan. The top destinations and sights in Switzerland are spread surprisingly wide (as you can see from my exceptionally crudely drawn map). Running roughly clockwise, you have Lucerne, with its lake and old town, the monastery of St. Gallen, the glitzy Ski resort of St. Moritz, a splendid lakefront castle at Bellinzona, the Jungfrau mountain summit, the tallest in Europe, the Matterhorn mountain peak, the most symbolic in Europe, the Lavaux vineyard terraces in the jazz resort of Montreux, then the historic capital of Bern.
That’s more than a handful of UNESCO world heritage sites within the country. Well, just within, as running that route would take you right up the borders of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein (I didn’t forget you, poor Liechtenstein), Italy and France.
So the good news is there is so many great options to choose from. You really have to focus not on what you might miss out on, but what incredible sites and experiences you can manageably achieve. In the end, I mapped out an eminently manageable route which I was nonetheless very satisfied with, as I would be combining lakes, mountains and old towns, boats, cable cars and trains, all into a five day trip. Here’s my route below.
My itinerary was as follows: Day 1: fly to Basel, train to Lucerne, explore the old town Day 2: ascend Mt. Rigi, do cross country ski trail Day 3: train to Interlaken, ascend to Niederhorn summit, sledging trail, train to Bern Day 4: explore Bern old town, night out in Bern Day 5: recover from hangover, explore Bern, train to Basel, explore Basel by night Day 6: fly home