Switzerland runs to a timetable. Here is what to put on yours.
Which summit railway is worth $380 and which mountain costs a tenth of that. What the Lucerne steamer charges. Whether Jungfraujoch still beats Titlis when the cloud is down. Reviews of every tour you can book in Switzerland.
A summit, a lake steamer, a paraglider and a chocolate morning.
The four bookings a first Swiss week gets built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The mountain dayTop of Europe Day Trip from ZurichThe train climbs inside the Eiger to a station at 3,454 metres. Go on a clear forecast or do not go at all.
02The lake afternoonLake Lucerne Panoramic Sightseeing CruiseA panoramic steamer out of Lucerne with mountains down both shores. The cheapest good day in the country.
03The one you talk aboutTandem Paragliding Experience from InterlakenOff the Beatenberg ridge on a tandem wing, over both Interlaken lakes. Twenty minutes in the air.
04The chocolate morningAward-Winning Geneva Chocolate &Old Town Tour with Boat Ride (3h)Geneva old town, a crossing of the lake, and a tasting bench at the end of it. Three hours, and lunch is ruined.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Switzerland.
Every Swiss tour we have reviewed →What the country actually books, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Award-Winning Geneva Chocolate &Old Town Tour with Boat Ride (3h)
Meet guides such as Paul, Ethan, Olivia, or Isabelle for a three-hour Geneva walk with five chocolate shops, one pastry stop, a surprise tasting, Old Town sights, chocolate history, the Marmite tradition, and a short Lake Geneva boat ride. Expect about 2.1 kilometers of walking and a dozen samples.
From · $131
Read our review →
2
Mount Titlis and Lucerne Day Trip from Zurich
from $215
3
Heidiland and Liechtenstein Tour from Zurich
from $120
4
Tandem Paragliding Experience from Interlaken
from $252
5
Top of Europe Day Trip from Zurich
from $380
6
Jungfraujoch Day Trip from Zurich: Swiss Alps & Bernese Oberland
from $386
7
Chamonix & Mont Blanc Panoramic Sky-Glass Bus Guided Day Trip
from $131
8
Mount Pilatus Summit from Lucerne With Lake Cruise
from $223
Jungfraujoch, Titlis, Pilatus or Rigi. Pick your altitude.
Every Swiss trip comes down to one question: which summit do you pay for. Four kinds of mountain day, what it costs to get on the first train, and which town it leaves from.
Six Swiss cities, and the day out each one is really for.
A river city that pays for the rest of the country, a covered bridge under two mountains, a fountain firing 140 metres up Lake Geneva, two lakes with a valley between them, a Rhine port with a red sandstone Münster, and a capital built under six kilometres of arcades.
Zurich: the old town on foot, then straight out on the water.
Everything in Zurich →
The Niederdorf lanes and the Grossmünster take a morning. The rest of the city is the lake, the Uetliberg line and the fast trains that put Rhine Falls forty minutes away. These three carry more travellers than anything else here.
The old town, guild houses and all
Down the Niederdorf lanes, past the guild houses on the Limmat and up to the Grossmünster towers. The cheapest way to understand why the city sits where it does.
An hour out from Bürkliplatz
The lake narrows south of the city and the shoreline turns to vineyards and villas. On a clear afternoon the Glarus Alps close the far end of it.
Rhine Falls, and Stein am Rhein after
Europe’s widest waterfall is 150 metres across and loud enough to feel. Most runs bolt on Stein am Rhein, a painted medieval town on the way back.
Half of Switzerland reads better from a boat deck.
Paddle steamers on Lake Lucerne still running on steam, the flat milk-green of Brienz by kayak, an evening cruise off Zurich with the Alps sitting on the horizon. Most of these leave from a jetty five minutes from the station.
What a day in Switzerland actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it charges. The mountain railways are why this country has its reputation; plenty of the best days here have nothing to do with them.
Old-town walks, castle and museum entries, the city trail games and the short lake hops.
- 1Chaplin’s World Entrance Ticketfrom $39
- 2Zurich Old Town Walking Tourfrom $33
- 3Zurich City Tour with Audio Commentaryfrom $44
Rhine Falls half-days, chocolate and cheese runs, the Chamonix coach, city tours with a boat attached.
The summit railways, tandem paragliding, private drivers and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Chocolate benches, cheese dairies and a fondue that eats an evening.
The country that industrialised milk chocolate still lets you temper your own bar. Take the dairy before lunch, the tasting bench after, and keep the fondue for a night with nothing else on it.
Three pieces of Swiss engineering you can buy a ticket for.
Mountains are everywhere in Europe. A railway tunnelled up through the north face of the Eiger, a footbridge slung between two summits and a cable car that turns as it climbs are not.
The Jungfrau Railway
The line was cut into the inside of the Eiger and the Mönch between 1896 and 1912, and it still spends its last seven kilometres in the dark, with a stop where windows were blasted through the north face. The terminus sits at 3,454 metres. There is a post box, an ice palace hacked into the glacier, and the whole Aletsch out of the window.
- 1Top of Europe Day Trip from Zurich★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,647 reviews
- 2Jungfraujoch Day Trip from Zurich: Swiss Alps & Bernese Oberland★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,409 reviews
- 3Jungfraujoch Top of Europe Day Trip from Lucerne★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 840 reviews
The Peak Walk
Glacier 3000 above Gstaad has the only suspension bridge in the world strung between two mountain peaks. It is 107 metres long, takes about two minutes to walk, and on a clean day it lines up the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau from the same handrail.
- 1Glacier 3000 Ticket Including Cable Car and Peak Walk by Tissot★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 195 reviews
- 2Glacier 3000 and Montreux Riviera from Geneva★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 151 reviews
- 3Riviera Col du Pillon & Glacier 3000 from Lausanne★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 32 reviews
The Titlis Rotair
The last stage up Titlis rotates through a full turn while it crosses the glacier, so nobody inside has to fight for the good side. It opened in 1992, the first of its kind anywhere, and it puts you out at 3,020 metres on ice that survives the summer.
- 1Best of Zurich Tour with Felsenegg Cable Car and Ferry Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 1,229 reviews
- 2Zurich Walking Tour With Cruise and Aerial Cable Car★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 669 reviews
- 3Mt Titlis Cable Car from Engelberg with Ice Flyer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 290 reviews
Four Swiss bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a hotel lobby. These four run on seat reservations, weather windows and timed entry slots that take no interest in when your train gets in.
- 01Top of Europe Day Trip from ZurichThe trains up carry a fixed number of seats and the clear-weather days go first. Turn up on a cloud day and you have paid $380 for fog.
- 02Glacier Express, Swiss Alps & Lucerne Tour | From ZurichSeat reservation is compulsory on top of the fare, and the panoramic carriages fill months out in high summer and over Christmas.
- 03Tandem Paragliding Experience from InterlakenWings only launch in the right wind. Book the first slot of the day and keep a spare morning, because being called off is normal here.
- 04Maison Cailler chocolate factory VisitThe factory visits run as timed guided slots with a fixed number of places, and wet afternoons are exactly when everyone else has the same idea.
Lucerne is a covered bridge with two mountains standing behind it.
The Kapellbrücke and the old town take an hour. The point of the town is what leaves from the quay: paddle steamers across the lake, the cogwheel railway up Pilatus, the cable car onto Rigi, and the road out to Titlis.
Every Lucerne day out →
What to do on the mornings the summit webcam shows white.
Two or three days in any Swiss week the tops are in cloud, and the mountain railway sells you a ride into fog at full price. The answer is the altitude you do not pay for: chocolate benches, cheese dairies, a castle on the lake, and the city trail games that run in the rain.
Interlaken sells altitude and adrenaline in equal measure.
The town sits on a flat strip of land between Thun and Brienz with the Jungfrau massif straight above it. Everything on sale here goes up: the railway to the Top of Europe, tandem wings off the ridge, canyon jumps in the Lütschine gorges.
- 1Tandem Paragliding Experience from Interlakenfrom $252
- 2Kayak Tour of the Turquoise Lake Brienzfrom $166
- 3Paragliding over the Lauterbrunnen Valleyfrom $264
By place — cities, lakes and valleys
By kind of day — summit, lake, kitchen or gorge
Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken, Zermatt: the run almost everybody does first.
The newest Swiss tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Grindelwald First (Top of Adventure) Ticket incl. Cliff Walk
Read our review →
Lauterbrunnen and Jungfraujoch Top of Europe Tickets
Read our review →
Self-Guided Audio Tour to the Many Faces of Geneva
Read our review →
Private Trip from Geneva to Swiss Riviera Montreux & Chamonix
Read our review →
Geneva Walking Tour for your private group with an official guide
Read our review →