Switzerland | Travel Guide

1. Zürich 

Culturally vibrant, efficiently run and attractively set at the meeting of river and lake, Zürich is regularly recognised as one of the world's most liveable cities. Long known as a savvy, hard-working financial centre, Switzerland's largest and wealthiest metropolis has also emerged in the 21st century as one of central Europe's hippest destinations, with an artsy, post-industrial edge that is epitomised in its exuberant summer Street Parade. Much of the ancient centre, with its winding lanes and tall church steeples, has been kept lovingly intact. Yet Zürich has also wholeheartedly embraced contemporary trends, with the conversion of old factories into cultural centres and creative new living spaces. Nowhere is that clearer than in Züri-West, the epicentre of the city’s nightlife.

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2. Jungfraujoch

The train ride up to Jungfraujoch (3454m) is one of Switzerland's classic experiences. Following an audacious route right through the heart of the Eiger, the railway was completed in 1912 and today carries more than two million people a year through some of Europe's most phenomenal high Alpine scenery. The icy wilderness of swirling glaciers and 4000m turrets that unfolds up top is staggeringly beautiful. Outside there are views of the moraine-streaked 23km-long tongue of the Aletsch Glacier, the longest glacier in the Alps and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The views across rippling peaks stretch as far as the Black Forest in Germany on cloudless days. Inside the adjacent Sphinx weather station you'll find ice sculptures, restaurants, indoor viewpoints and souvenir shops.

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3. Bern

Wandering through the picture-postcard, Unesco World Heritage–listed Old Town, with its provincial, laid-back air, it's hard to believe that Bern is the capital of Switzerland. Bern’s flag-festooned, cobbled centre, rebuilt in distinctive grey-green sandstone after a devastating 1405 fire, is an aesthetic delight, with 6km of covered arcades, cellar shops and bars, and fantastical folk figures frolicking on 16th-century fountains. From the surrounding hills, you’re presented with an equally captivating picture of red roofs arrayed on a spit of land within a bend of the Aare River. In a nutshell, Bern seduces and surprises at every turn. Its museums are excellent, its drinking scene dynamic and its locals happy to switch from their famously lilting dialect to textbook French, High German or English – which all goes to show that there’s more to Bern than bureaucracy.

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4. Interlaken

Once Interlaken made the Victorians swoon with mountain vistas from the chandelier-lit confines of grand hotels; today it makes daredevils scream with adrenaline-loaded activities. Straddling the glacier-fed Lakes Thun and Brienz and capped by the pearly white peaks of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, the town is the gateway to Switzerland's fabled Jungfrau region and the country's hottest adventure destination bar none. If the touristy town itself leaves you cold, the mountains on its doorstep will blow your mind, particularly if you’re abseiling waterfalls, thrashing white water or gliding soundlessly above 4000m summits.

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5. Geneva

Like the swans that frolic on its eponymous Alpine lake (Europe's largest), Geneva is a rare bird. Slick, cosmopolitan and constantly perceived as the Swiss capital, the people of Switzerland's second-largest city chatter in almost every language among streets paved by gold. The headquarters of the World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross, the second-largest branches of the United Nations and World Bank are here, along with the overload of luxury hotels, boutiques, jewellers, restaurants and chocolatiers accompanying them. Beneath this flawless exterior, lies a fascinating rough-cut diamond, peopled by artists and activists educated in international schools, drifters and denizens. Geneva's counter-culture dwells in Les Grottes, the Quartier des Pâquis and along the post-industrial Rhône where neighbourhood bars hum with attitude and energy. This is the Geneva of the 'real' Genevois… or as close as you'll get to it.

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6. Andermatt

Blessed with austere mountain appeal, Andermatt contrasts low-key village charm with big wilderness. The town was once an important staging post at a four-way crossroads – the north–south route over the St. Gotthard pass (2106m) linking Lucerne with Ticino; the Furka Pass (2431m) corkscrewing west to Valais; and the Oberalp Pass (2044m) looping east to Graubünden. With the opening of the 17km-long Gotthard Road Tunnel in 1980, however, Andermatt found itself bypassed on the all-important north–south route. Of late there has been some mega-development for Andermatt in the form of hotels and massive expansion of the ski lifts under the name Ski Arena. More hotels are planned, but for now the traditional charm of the town centre remains blissfully intact

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7. St. Moritz

Switzerland's original winter wonderland and the cradle of Alpine tourism, St. Moritz has been luring royals, celebrities and moneyed wannabes since 1864. With its shimmering aquamarine lake, emerald forests and aloof mountains, the town looks a million dollars. Yet despite the string of big-name designer boutiques on Via Serlas and celebs bashing the pistes, this resort isn't all show. The real riches lie outdoors in the mountains with superb carving on Corviglia, hairy black runs on Diavolezza and miles of hiking trails when the snow melts. St. Moritz has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, and most are surprised to hear that the town first gained fame due to its mineral springs, which were discovered 3000 years ago and established the town as a summer spa resort.

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8. Lucerne

Recipe for a gorgeous Swiss city: take a cobalt lake ringed by mountains of myth, add a well-preserved medieval Altstadt (Old Town) and a reputation for making beautiful music, then sprinkle with covered bridges, sunny plazas, candy-coloured houses and waterfront promenades. Lucerne is stunning, and deservedly popular since the likes of Goethe, Queen Victoria and Wagner savoured its views in the 19th century. Legend has it that an angel with a light showed the first settlers where to build a chapel in Lucerne, and today it still has amazing grace. One minute it’s nostalgic, the next highbrow. Though the shops are still crammed with what Mark Twain so eloquently described as ‘gimcrackery of the souvenir sort’, Lucerne doesn’t only dwell on the past, with a roster of music gigs keeping the vibe upbeat. Carnival capers at Fasnacht, balmy summers, golden autumns – this ‘city of lights’ shines in every season.

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9. Appenzell

Appenzell looks as though it has been plucked straight from the pages of a children's bedtime story. Behind the gaily muralled facades of its gabled houses lie Konditoreien (cake shops), craft shops, delis, butchers, and taverns dishing up cheese-laden specialities. The Sitter River curves through the town and beyond to meadows of velvet green that pucker and rise to mountains sheer and ragged. This is Swiss dairy country par excellence: deeply traditional, endearingly authentic and still rooted in farming customs that have been honoured for generations.

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10. Basel

Historically, Basel's position astride the mighty Rhine has contributed to its growth as a key trade and transport hub. Today, it's a global centre for the pharmaceutical industry – titans Roche and Novartis are both headquartered here. But that's of little interest to the many thousands of art and architecture lovers who visit each year for the world-famous ART Basel festival and the city's wealth of galleries, museums and iconic buildings. Basel's position at the juncture of the French, German and Swiss borders adds to its multicultural appeal, and it's perhaps the place where Switzerland's Franco-Germanic roots are most evident, although the dominant language spoken is Swiss-German. It's easy to spend a day wandering the cobbled streets of the lofty and beautiful Altstadt in Grossbasel (Greater Basel) on the Rhine's south bank before crossing the Mittlere Brücke to Kleinbasel (Little Basel) for a more 'everyday' vibe and riverside al fresco dining.

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11. Grindelwald

Grindelwald’s sublime natural assets are film-set stuff – the chiselled features of the Eiger's north face, the glinting tongues of Oberer and Unterer Glaciers and the crown-like peak of Wetterhorn will make you stare, swoon and lunge for your camera. Skiers and hikers cottoned onto its charms in the late 19th century, which makes it one of Switzerland’s oldest resorts, and it has lost none of its appeal over the decades, with geranium-studded Alpine chalets and verdant pastures set against an Oscar-worthy backdrop.

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12. Gruyères

Sights in the area known as Gruyères, famed for the cheese with almost the same name (gruyère), are spread around three adjoining villages – Broc, Bulle and Gruyères – and the verdant, undulating countryside that surrounds them. It's a pretty area, but it's not the landscapes you've come for – it's that nutty, semi-hard cheese revered the world over, and those featherweight meringues drowned in double cream you've heard so much about. Named after the emblematic gru (crane) brandished by the medieval Counts of Gruyères, the villages that make up Gruyères are a riot of 15th- to 17th-century houses tumbling down a hillock. Their essence is cobbled, a castle is their crowning glory and the Appellation d’Origine Contrôllée (AOC) fromage produced for centuries on the surrounding farms is your take-home prize.

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13. Lugano

Ticino’s lush, mountain-rimmed lake isn’t its only liquid asset. The largest city in the canton is also the country’s third-most-important banking centre. Suits aside, Lugano is a vivacious city, with posh designer boutiques, bars and pavement cafes huddling in the spaghetti maze of steep cobblestone streets that untangle at the edge of the lake and along the flowery promenade. The recent opening of its LAC arts centre has bumped it up in the cultural stakes, too. Popping up above the lake are the twin peaks of Monte Brè and Monte San Salvatore, both commanding astonishing views deep into the Alps and attracting hikers and mountain bikers in the warmer months.

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14. Zermatt

You can sense the anticipation on the train from Täsch: couples gaze wistfully out of the window, kids fidget and stuff in Toblerone, folk rummage for their cameras. And then, as they arrive in Zermatt, all give little whoops of joy at the pop-up-book effect of the Matterhorn (4478m), the hypnotically beautiful, one-of-a-kind peak that rises like a shark's fin above town. Since the mid-19th century, Zermatt has starred among Switzerland’s glitziest resorts. British climber Edward Whymper reached the Matterhorn's summit in 1865 and plucky souls have come here ever since to climb: Theodore Roosevelt climbed the Matterhorn in 1881 and a 20-year-old Winston Churchill scaled Monte Rosa (4634m) in 1894. Today skiers cruise along well-kept pistes, spellbound by the scenery, while style-conscious darlings flash designer threads in the town's swish lounge bars. But all are smitten with the Matterhorn, an unfathomable monolith you can’t quite stop looking at.

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15. Lausanne

Surrounded by vineyards, rolling down a trio of hillsides to the lakeshore, Switzerland’s fourth-largest city, Lausanne, likes to think it gives Geneva a run for its money. While gridlocked Geneva seems to focus on the past and its reputation for hosting more international organisations than anywhere in the world, Lausanne looks to the future. The city is known for its upbeat vibe, perhaps on account of its enviable location and its high-brow though party-hearty student population – Lausanne's EPFL Research Institute is considered Europe's version of Boston's MIT. The headquarters of the International Olympic Committee are here, as well as unique museums undergoing exciting transformations and a new aquarium contrasting with the city's Gothic Old Town. The neighbourhoods of chichi lakeside Ouchy and Flon, with its re-imagined warehouses, reflect Lausanne's hip, urban culture; both beckon you to visit.

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16. Saas Fee

Hemmed in by a magnificent amphitheatre of 13 implacable peaks over 4000m and backed by the threatening tongues of nine glaciers, the village of Saas Fee looks somewhat tiny in the revealing light of summer. Until 1951 only a mule trail from Saas Grund in the valley below led to this isolated outpost and locals scraped a living from farming. Nowadays, the benefits of the popularity of winter sports and a worldwide tourism boom are clear to see. Saas Fee is an affluent, chic, car-free resort where every well-to-do skier and hiker wants to be. Modern chalets surround the village, but its commercial heart, well endowed with old timber chalets and 19th-century granaries built on stilts to keep the rats out, retains a definite old-world charm.

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17. Brienz

If a child had to draw a picture of a fantasy Alpine village, Brienz would probably be it, with its collection of dark-timber chalets sprouting red geraniums, tooting steam train and views across the startlingly turquoise waters of its namesake lake to high mountains and thick forests beyond. The deeply traditional village has a stuck-in-time feel with woodcarving workshops and a lakefront promenade.

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18. Mürren

Arriving on a clear evening, as the train from Grütschalp floats along the horizontal ridge towards Mürren, the peaks across the valley feel so close that you could reach out and touch them. And that’s when you’ll think you’ve died and gone to Heidi heaven. With its low-slung wooden chalets and spellbinding views of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, car-free Mürren is the Swiss Alps in a nutshell.

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19. Schilthorn

There’s a tremendous 360-degree, 200-peak panorama from the 2970m Schilthorn, best appreciated from the Skyline view platform or Piz Gloria revolving restaurant. On a clear day, you can see from Titlis around to Mont Blanc, and across to the German Black Forest. Despite the stellar views, some visitors seem more preoccupied with practising their delivery of the line, ‘The name’s Bond, James Bond’, because several scenes from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service were shot here in 1968–69. Up at the summit, visitors can embrace their own inner Bond while soaking up trivia about stunt skiing and other aspects of the film's production at Bond World 007.

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20. Zernez

Who are we kidding? Zernez may be an attractive cluster of stone chalets outlined by the profile of a baroque church and the stout medieval tower of its castle, Schloss Planta Wildenberg, but most visitors are only here for one thing: the bounties of the Swiss National Park. As one of the main gateways to the oldest national park in the Alps, this slow-paced village is the perfect base for exploring the surrounding mountains, lakes and river valleys. It has the Swiss National Park Centre on its doorstep, plus 21 walking trails readily accessible along the main park road through Pass dal Fuorn.

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Source: Lonely Planet

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