A Week in Switzerland | A Travel Round Up

You’ll be pleased to know that I’m finally ready to share my Switzerland travels with you! A bit of a laptop disaster and a busy week meant that I’ve not had the time until now to share this post.

As Switzerland is ridiculously expensive, we stayed with friends, plus we hadn’t seen them in a couple of years so it was good to catch up. Our friends live in Lenzburg, which is about half an hour by train from Zurich. It’s a lovely town, they live on the older side, close to a castle and by many vineyards. My tip for Switzerland is definitely to try Swiss wine, it’s pretty much impossible to get the decent stuff in the UK. I must admit we didn’t look much at accommodation, but I wonder, if like Scandinavia, Air B&B might be a good shout for more affordable places to stay. But anyway, back to a little round up of our time in Switzerland…

Zurich

I actually didn’t end up spending as much time as I’d like to have done in Zurich. But we were overwhelmed with things to do. Wanting to see mountains, cities and eat lots of delicious food, there was just so much on my list (and still on there). On our first trip to Zurich, we mainly just wandered around. Through the old town and up to Lindenhof, where it was starting to get super autumnal. Our second trip to Zurich was to go and make use of the wonderful Thermalbad and Spa. I have no photos (for obvious reasons) of the spa trip. But, let me just say doing “the full circuit” is well worth it. I also suggest finishing in the roof top pool and have a glass of fizz after to finish your day. It’s just wonderful. We also went to Zeughauskeller for epic Schnitzel and beers after our relax session, basically a wonderfully relaxing day. But I definitely need to go back and explore Zurich some more.

Luzern

After a day in the mountains (more on that in a separate post this week) we headed Luzern with our friends. This Medieval city is just stunning. With views of the Alps, albeit a little hazy for us, we had a lovely afternoon walking around. As part of our visit we headed up some of the towers that make up what remains of the city walls. The views were stunning, but you definitely need a head for heights for that activity. We also walked along the river, which has some beautiful wooden bridges criss crossing it. The most famous is the Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke), which is very beautiful, although was rebuilt in 1993 after a fire.

Grimsel Pass

On our last full day in Switzerland, we went out for a run around Lenzburg, which was just lovely. We then decided to spend a day driving some mountain passes. Heading to the Grimsel Pass, which crosses the Bernese Alps at an elevation of 2,164 metres (7,100 ft). We were going to take the Gelmer Funicular, but as it was sunny and the Swiss school holidays it was too busy. But we did cross a mega chain bridge, which you need a head for heights to do! We continued our drive up to Grimselsee and the dam built there. We got views (in the distance) of a 4000m+ mountain Finsteraarhorn and just generally wonderful views of the Alps. Continuing up the drive to the highest point, we go to 2400m on the panorama road. This road that comes off the mountain pass is one way only, and you have to follow a timing system to drive down it and drive back! A little bit hairy, and a world away from the Hard Knott Pass in the Lakes. It was good fun though and it’s just made me want to go back to Switzerland and do some hiking, maybe more mountain pass walks though, the peaks are a bit much for me (I’m not a very skilled climber).

Lenzburg

Now I don’t have many photos of Lenzburg, as we didn’t spend much time in the town. But we did enjoy a fondue at Mike’s Weinloft. This is a lovely, little pop up bar in the old town. And you can’t visit Switzerland without having fondue right? But I would say if you’re looking to be close to Zurich, without the expense, staying in Lenzburg may be a good idea. It’s also very pretty, I wish my phone camera hadn’t broken mid-holiday as I didn’t get a chance to take photos with my camera of Lenzburg!