The Swiss Alps and German Cars
Our international trip after many years. Lots of planning and still there were things that did not go as planned. So thought of putting this out to save people time and money. Its FREE!!
So what was it:
15 days to Europe
7 days Swiss
8 days Germany
Visa: Apply for swiss and you get to enter europe. Shortest time and higher possibility to get it.
Quirks First? Let’s go:
There are some quirks I have noted as below, these are very important:
1. Buy swiss pass only for days you will do museums, Junfrau and mount titlis. For rest of the days, buy daily ticket.
2. Although public transport is awesome, you should take international driving permit, rent a fancy car for a day or 2 and drive long distance.
3. All check ins are after 3pm and they charge 50 to 100 euros for early check-in. Plan accordingly. Leave luggage at the hotel and plan your day out, come back and check in
4. If you are vegeterian — Everything has egg in it so ask before you buy it. EU veg considers Egg as veg.
5. So many varieties of very nice breads, sandwiches, hot chocolate, coffees. It’s an experience you must have sitting out in chill drinking hot chocolate and a sandwich.
6. Very healthy quinoa based and cheese based veg salads are available.
7. Awesome cut fruits can be bought from super market.
8. Credit card works like a charm, remember your pin and enable international. Don’t enable tap, keep it with pin only.
9. A repeat but great public transport never seen something so well organised.
10. Your kids will ask you to shift here, it’s really so nice.
Lake Lucerne:
11. Must have Local pizza on luzerne train station towards platform 14
12. Boat ride of 1 hour by public transport boat is free with Swiss pass on Lake Lucerene
13. Lockers available for rent. We had to pay 10 euros per locker for about 4 hours approx.
14. Plan in such a way that you can pack for few days cover Lucerene, engelberb (mouth titlis) Interlaken and come back to Zurich. This way you avoid carrying big bags, especially engelberb there is no transport from train station to hotel. Book nearest hotel to train station. Carry food for engelberb.
15. Have vegan lunch at tibits on 2nd floor of Lucerene train station. They have dal rice as well. They charge by weight.
Interlaken:
16. Have food at youth hostel. Don’t miss the ice cream here.
17. Take 1st cable car at 7.15. later you go more the crowd. If you go early, while you come back you get entire cable car empty to take excellent photos.
18. Indian food at Interlaken is unnecessary expensive and not so good. Follow #1.
19. Coop super market has lot of fruits and great quality.
20. Harder kulm can be skipped ( we skipped it) if you do junfrau.
Engelberb/mount titlis
21. It’s worth doing mount titlis even if you are doing junfrau. The snow tubing is too much fun and weather at Mount titlis is not so harsh you can enjoy. Junfrau weather can be bad due to the height.
22. Engelberg is lonesome, it has nothing but empty roads. Carry food and medicines. But it’s amazingly beautiful with lot of green pastures.
23. With Swiss pass you get 40% discount. Everything is included once you buy the ticket.
24. There is Indian restaurant at Mount titlis and you get pav bhaji at exit 😊, its so indian!
25. Euros are accepted at decent rate in Swiss but they give you change back in francs. Carry Euros more easily available at good rates or pay by credit card.
I will attach the itinerary at the end of the blog in excel sheet.
Highlights of Swiss:
1. Zurich: It rained on the first day and its magical beauty got a different look. Nice lake, Fifa Museum, Wow Museum, nice sandwiches, hot chocolates and coffee.
2. Lake Lucerne: Great train travel from zurich, Nice boat ride. And the most awesome pizza at lake lucerne station at platform no 14, DON’T MISS IT.
3. Engelberg/Mount Titlis: The most beautiful town with lots of greens but too remote. We stayed overnight but would not recommend as all hotels are all on the hill top with no good way to travel except walk it up. With bags, gets all the more difficult. Couple of snow activities at Titlis are good as its weather is better then Junfrau.
4. Panoramic Express: From Lake lucerne to Zurich, take panormic express train. The route is most scenic.
5. Interlaken/Junfrau: This is highlight of swiss trip for anyone. Don’t miss ice creams and food at youth hostel. Avoid unecessarily expensive food at India village. The train and the cable car travel is experience itself. Swiss pass gets you 25% discount. Very expensive but worth it.
6. Lake Konstance: Germany starts with a great deal of automation. Nobody at reception, automatic checkin. Even your room cards are dispensed from an ATM kind of machine. We stayed at boarding house, it was awesome. Now the best part. Go to a port named STAAD and take a ferry ride of 15 to 20 mins. The other part of the town has live singing, pizzas, ice creams and if you drink beer. It was an evening to remember.
7. Stuttgart: Mercedez Benz Museum — You just can’t miss this one! There is porsche museum too but we were too tired to do it. We skipped it.
8. Stuttgart — City Center: A big place near Museum of illusion, city library. Great place to walk.
9. Munich: FC Bayern Museum — such a well thought layout supporting rich, poor, disabled — Everyone.
10. Marien Platz: Shopping, Shopping and Shopping. Everything with all price ranges.
11. Therme ending: Thermal Waterpark — Crazy good!
12. Italian stuff — Feinkost Spina — Pesto, Pastas, Olive oil, wines of best quality.
13. BMW Velt: Most awesome cars and bikes. First time I felt BMW >>> then Mercedez Benz.
Overall Swiss is beautiful and Germany is mostly great automation and cars.
We were very lucky to get 8 days sun shine straight in Germany and longer days till 8.30 pm.
Have to modify Itinerary to remove so personal stuff, will attach in few days.
If you need to reach out to me to ask anything feel free.
