Switzerland (ft. Liechtenstein) (5 Viewers)

C’est la VoR

C’est la VoR

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Hello fellow travellers!

For my annual Eurovision holiday this year I've decided to take a week of training through Europe before arriving in Basel, so I need to start thinking seriously about an itinerary.

I'm planning to leave on Friday 2 May with a view to getting into Basel on Sunday 11 or Monday 12 May, giving me just over a week to see some sights, mostly in Switzerland itself.

Given Basel is located in the northern part of Switzerland, I'm thinking it might make sense to head south to Geneva first and then travel across the country and circle round back to Basel.

So I'm currently thinking of getting the Eurostar to Paris and then heading straight on to Dijon on day one, then spending the night there and get a train to Geneva on day two, possibly breaking up the journey with a few hours in Lyon.

Once in Switzerland I'm thinking a night or two in Geneva, then Bern, then Zurich, possibly a quick detour into Liechtenstein to tick off another microstate, before arriving in Basel for Eurovision week.

I'm just conscious that I might be packing a bit too much in, I don't want to be racing around for trains so much that I don't have time to enjoy the places I visit.

So I guess I'm asking - out of the big three Swiss cities (Geneva, Bern, Zurich) is one particularly skippable compared to the others? Conversely, is there one you'd recommend spending more time in? Any other Swiss locales I really should think about adding?

I don't care to ski, but I do quite like to idea of climbing a (small) alp.

Also if anyone's done a similar trip and can recommend an alternate route, I'm all ears!
 
Yeah my only brief interactions with Switzerland are transiting through on the way skiing and picking up visitors from the airport. Everything about it is expensive as fuck, thats all I know
 
Going to make this tragic failure of a thread my general holiday blog. Got into Dijon last night where I paused to break up the long train journey from Leeds.

Nice town, very chill and full of good looking people sitting outside bars smoking and queueing up for Gelato in the middle of the night.

Gotta love hilarious French service though. I just came down for the ‘continental breakfast’ at my (admittedly inexpensive) hotel, to find a wardrobe-sized room containing an ancient coffee machine, a dusty jar of old cornflakes and a couple of tiny pots of petit filou.

I wandered back out again, evidently looking a bit confused as the hotel manager glowered at me expectantly.

Me: Is it… self service?
Him: Oui, self service.
Me (trying to be polite): So this is… everything?

He sighs and stomps off wordlessly into a side room, returning a few moments later to slam down honestly the stalest, hardest scrag basket of baguette ends I’ve ever chipped a tooth on.

“Zis is everything”

:D
 
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Honestly, you give someone an anecdote about a €17 jacket potato just for them to christen it a failure of a thread! :(

Enjoying @VoR doing to true Nemo experience and getting to Switzerland by TRAIN experiencing all the delights on the way. More stories of you offending the french please!
 
No offence meant @Tisch!

And yes, that Nemo song did pop into my head. Not to such an extent that I was actually compelled to play it though.

Not to make this a Diddy in Malta-esque moaning thread because I genuinely am thrilled to be on holiday, but I had also forgotten what an awful, stressful experience transferring at Gare du Nord is. It’s like if Kings Cross was 75% busier and everyone was 100% ruder.

:LaZarra:
 
Dark Carnival said:
Gotta love these tourists coming in expecting a massage with their breakfast?
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I love how perfectly French this response is! :D Sorry I wasn’t sufficiently grateful for my SCRAGGY BAGUETTE ENDS!

Anyway on a more positive note, it’s a beautiful morning so I’m enjoying one of my favourite activities when solo travelling in France - mincing through a park listening to Mylène Farmer :disco:
 
Random reflections as I leave the first leg of my journey in Lausanne/Geneva/Montreux.

Stayed in Lausanne as it was (relatively) cheaper than Geneva. I say relatively. I was steeled for notorious Swiss restaurant prices, so when I dipped into a little place for dinner on Saturday night and saw a bit of schnitzel for £26, I figured ‘steep, but tolerable in the circumstances’.

Tried to order it:

“Um… Sir? You are looking at the childs menu. Here we have the adult version of this dish…”

Turns the page to an adult sized portion of what is essentially breaded chicken with some chips… £45 :D

That sobering moment aside, Lausanne was nice enough if a touch indistinct. The lakefront was predictably lovely and it has a nice cobbled old town. After my £50 BREADED CHICKEN, I wandered down to what appears to be Lausanne’s only gay bar. It was 10pm on a Saturday night and there was one (1) person in there. I walked on…
 
Yesterday I did a gorgeous 12km hike through vineyard country in Geneva. Glorious, and very French-feeling, which I guess it essentially is. Made me want to take out my phone and blast the score from Jean de Floret as a soundtrack, as if that wouldn’t have made me look even more like an obnoxious tourist than the Swiss flag cap I’d bought in a souvenir shop in a pinch when I realised I’d left my beloved unicorn cap at home. :(

I did get caught in the most torrential downpour on the final leg, coupled with my phone going down to 2% and threatening to leave me stranded*

Luckily, a lovely lady running a local cafe let me sit and dry off while my phone recharged for about 90 minutes and wouldn’t even let me buy an overpriced beer as a thankyou.

It was still teaming down when I got into Geneva central so I just did a quick walk along the lakeside and skipped out. I found a less expensive dining spot that was absolutely heaving with mortifying BRITS ABROAD, including one hilarious woman who repeatedly slurred/yelled “JE SUIS LACTOSE INTOLERANT!” at the poor bewildered French waiter. :D

* I forked out for a 10 day all-purpose Swiss public transport pass but TBH I’m beginning to resent spending the money. There’s not a barrier in sight and NOBODY checks. Wonderfully convenient, but if only I’d known!
 
Today I went to Montreux on a guided tour up to something called GLACIER 3000, which markets itself as the only bridge that connects the peaks of two (very close together) mountains.

Really foggy still from yesterday so the view wasn’t what it could have been, but still quite an experience.

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Had about about an hour in Montreux itself, which seemed nice enough and very proud of the fact that Freddie Mercury bottomed about there for a few years in the 80s. They even have a sort of budget ABBA museum in the casino. I’m sure he would have been touched that he’s been memorialised by the ‘Mercury Madras’ they were flogging at the restaurant. :D

On to Bern next!
 
OK so while I found plenty to do in Lausanne and Geneva, and the aforementioned countryside was gorgeous, as cities they weren't really giving me the Swiss fairytale fantasy. Bern on the other hand - stunning! :disco: It's actually the leg of the journey I came closest to skipping too, for some reason I had in my head that it would be a dull, administrative capital city by default kind of vibe. Far from it! Absolutely one of the most beautiful cities I've ever stayed in.

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My favourite part is the rather curious inclusion of an active bear enclosure plonked in the middle of the old town. Not in a zoo, or even a large park. Just right outside a fairly busy pub with low fences. The bears themselves seem profoundly unbothered, and they've installed a tunnel system down to the riverside so they can come and go as they please, but still, I can't believe that at least one pissed (most likely British) tourist hasn't fallen in and been devoured.

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To add to my Bern recommendations, it's a fabulous jumping off point for exploring some of the most gorgeous parts of central Switzerland. I did the Lauterbrunnen trail, which is a canyon consisting of 72 individual waterfalls. It was apparently JRR Tolkein's inspiration for Rivendell. From there I got 3 cable cars up to Schiltorn, one of the highest mountain peaks and the location of a famous revolving cafe where they film some of the iconic scenes from 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.

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(Excuse the squinting, the glare of the snow/being above any cloud coverage was VERY bright and of course I forgot to bring sunglasses)

Then I went to another mountainside area called Grindelwald, where they have a walk through a former glacier, now just a canyon, I guess because Climate Change, but still absolutely incredible views to which my pictures do no justice whatsoever.

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Because Swiss people are apparently insane, they also have a net stretched across the canyon several hundred feet above a fast-flowing river and bone-shattering rocks so idiot tourists like me can do stuff like this:

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Currently in Lucerne which is another useful jumping off point. I spent yesterday in Zurich which was nice enough but just a big capital city with loads of expensive shops really. The zoo was pretty cool though. I was going to visit Mount Pilatus today, but apparently the hiking routes and cable cars don't open until next week so I'm just going to have a wander around the city instead before I check out and move on.

Next stop, ticking off another pointless country with a stopover in Liechtenstein :disco:
 
C’est la VoR said:
* I forked out for a 10 day all-purpose Swiss public transport pass but TBH I’m beginning to resent spending the money. There’s not a barrier in sight and NOBODY checks. Wonderfully convenient, but if only I’d known!
Click to expand...

Oh, and word of warning if anyone does come to Switzerland in the near future, this turned out to very much be a case of cultural stereotypes having a basis in reality. Throughout my 3 days in the French region of Switzerland, nobody gave a fuck about checking this. Soon as I entered the German region, every single trip, sometimes twice :D

It also gets you loads of discounts on the big tourist traps (such as the ride up Mount Schiltorn) so def worth the investment. It's called the Swiss Travel Pass.
 
C’est la VoR said:
After my £50 BREADED CHICKEN, I wandered down to what appears to be Lausanne’s only gay bar. It was 10pm on a Saturday night and there was one (1) person in there. I walked on…
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Also, this happened AGAIN in Bern! :D Admittedly on a Tuesday, so more explicible, but again around 10-11pm I thought I'd take a look at 'Bern's friendliest gay bar'. It was in a cellar so I had to open the door to see inside. One old man, who I presume was the manager as there was nobody else behind the bar, jumped up in astonishment like Mrs Lovett before she sings the Worst Pies in London at Sweeney Todd. Otherwise, completely empty. I apologetically backed back out again. Another possible love connection squandered :(
 
So most (sane) people pass through tiny little Liechtenstein in an afternoon at most. I decided to spend two whole nights there. :D

Mindful that the main criticism of Liechtenstein is that the main cities (such as they are!) of Vaduz and Schaan are really boring, I decided to stay instead in Triesenberg, a lovely little resort nestled at the foot of the mountains. It's popular with skiers, cyclists and hikers at the peak of their respective seasons, none of which evidently intersected with the second weekend in May, because I really cannot overstate how much there was quite simply NOBODY THERE.

Even my hotel was a self-check in. The whole time there I never saw another guest. Somebody evidently prepared a breakfast each morning (No PETIT FILOUS and BAGUETTE SCRAG ENDS thankfully) but I never saw them either. The restaurant doubled as a bar, which was also self-serve and run on an honour system. I kind of loved it. :D

On my main day there I set out on a hike up the mountains which the AllTrails app described as 'moderate' difficulty. Perhaps in the height of summer that's true. Again, I was slightly off season and I genuinely very nearly died. It started absolutely lovely, but gradually got steeper and steeper and narrower and narrower. At a certain point I was just scrabbling up rock with a sheer drop to certain death on one side and the mountain to the other. It had, I later learned, snowed just the week before and that snow was now in a state of rapid and active melting which was causing intermittent rock slides. One of these had essentially taken out a chunk of the path that rounded a corner of the mountain, leaving a huge pile of loose rocks overlooking the aforementioned sheer drop to certain death.

This was taken a bit lower down, but to give an impression of what I was having to get across. Try to imagine that just behind this image is a death chasm.

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Now, the sensible option at this point would have been to turn back, but in my defence I had just seen a 70-80 year old man sprint past me a few minutes earlier, so assuming he wasn't dead I knew it had to be passable somehow. Also it had reached a point of steepness where it really was equally scary/dangerous to turn back.

After a few minutes of low-level panic, I decided that the safest approach might be to very slowly bum-shuffle my way across the rockfall. About halfway through this attempt I realised with a genuinely heart-stopping moment of terror that I'd made a terrible mistake, as I now had no purchase, no centre of gravity, nothing to grab onto and the slightest shift in my weight could send me and a bunch of the rocks sliding into the abyss. Also, every so often at random, bits of rock would slide down and fall from above, below and basically all around me. I very, very slowly inched back, and managed to get back onto the solid part of the path where I then sat in frozen terror for about 45 minutes until a kindly local hiker found me and showed me the safe(ish) way to get across, which was literally the exact opposite of what I'd tried to do. You have to do it standing up (obviously, in retrospect) and 'lean into the mountain'. He confirmed that my bum-shuffle attempt was "Probably the stupidest thing you could have done."

One terrifying mountain-lean later, I managed to get across and onto the next part of the path - about 90 minutes of walking through intermittent sheets of half-melted/actively melting snow and ice. :square:

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On the plus side, the views once I got over the 3 hour death hike portion of the walk were absolutely lovely.

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