We made a trip to Switzerland and Italy during July. We did a lot of study, invested lot of time analyzing the spots, collecting information finally made our own itinerary and we loved the plan. Want to share to the world about the plan we did after hours of googling and discussion.
High Level Itinerary: (4 Days in Switzerland and 6 days in Italy)
Day 1: We landed in Zurich around 8 am. Took train to Interlaken. Stayed in Interlaken
Day 2: Visited Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe). Came back to Lucerne and stayed in Lucerne.
Day 3: Lucerne City Tour and stayed in Lucerne.
Day 4: Mt. Pilatus in Lucerne. Took train and reached Milan in the night. Stayed in Milan
Day 5: Took train to Venice in the morning, Stayed in Venice.
Day 6: Saw Venice in the morning, took train to Florence in the evening and stayed in Florence.
Day 7: Visited Davids statue, Duamo in Florence. We took train to Pisa. Then took train to Rome and stayed in Rome at night.
Day 8: We visited Vatican City and stayed in Rome
Day 9: We saw the Roman Colosseum, Forum and Palantine Hill and other places and we stayed in Rome.
Day 10: We left in the morning to the airport and took the flight back to our country.
Detailed Itinerary:
Day 1:
• We landed in Zurich around 8 am.
• We bought 4 day swiss pass from http://www.raileurope.com/ before our journey. One have to activate the pass before starting the 1st journey in Swiss. If you have the pass, you can just hop on and hop off a train. There is no need for reservation except for special mountain trains.
• Activated our Swiss pass in Zurich train station, also we reserved the Golden Pass from Lucerne to Interlaken. (We upgraded our ticket to 1st class just for Golden Pass Journey, so that we can get in to the Panoromic cabin). Got a good glimpse of Swiss Alps and nature.
• Took regional train to Lucerne, following that we took golden pass with panoramic view to Interlaken. Reached Interlaken at 1 pm.
• After a small nap, we roamed around the streets of Interlaken namely Bahnhofstrasse. We took chocolate tour at Schuh Chocolate show at 5 pm.
• We took a train to Lake Brienz, then caught the last cruise on Lake Brienz which was 90 mins cruise.
• We reached our hotel (near train station) and we hit out bed.
Day 2:
• We left our hotel at 8 am to Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe). We took the trains, went up the Jungfraujoch. We went up through Grindelwald and came down through Wengen. Enjoyed the beauty of the Jungfraujoch. Definitley a must see place in Swiss. You can also spend more time here doing all the snow rides. Please make sure you leave early in the day for this place, as it may take whole day to see this place.
• We came down to Wengen around 3 pm. We took train to Schyinge Platte. The ride to Schyinge Plate was good, on the top there is a restaurant and a botanical garden. This place has great scenaries and we took awesome pictures. You also get view of three mountains of the alps region.
• We took the train to Lucerne (2 hours) and stayed in Lucerne.
Alternate: You can spend the whole day at Jungfraujoch and enjoy the rides there and skip Schyinge Platte.
Day 3:
• We took walking tour of historical Lucerne. The main being Chapel Bridge, lion monument followed by other places nearby. (You can do a faster tour in 2 hours, but you can slow down and enjoy the whole day too.)
• We took a ride to Mt. Rigi in the afternoon. (*You can skip this if you need some free time)
• Had dinner at one of the best Lucerne restaurants and crashed on bed in the hotel.
Day 4:
• We left in the morning to Mt. Pilatus. There are two ways to go there - boat and by bus combo. We took the boat ride, stopped at Hergiswil and visited Hergiswil glass factory. It was a good tour and eyes on experience on glass making. Then we continued our boat ride to Alpnachstad, took the train up the mountains and enjoyed Mt. Pilatus. Way back we returned the other way via Frakmuntek. We did the activities in Frakmuntek and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We took the return route through bus.
• We reached Lucerne in the evening and took train to Milan (3.5 hours) and stayed in Milan at night.
If you have some extra days here are my suggestions.
1. You can stay one/two more days in Interlaken. Visit Schilthorn one day, small villages near Interlaken. Enjoy the nature and scenery.
2. You can stay 2 more days in Lucerne and visit Mt. Titlis, Mt. Rigi, Castle Tour and enjoy all mountains.
3. If you love hiking ,there's plenty of options in Swiss.
Day 5:
• We didnt buy the train pass for Italy. Even if you buy an Italy pass, one cannot hop on and hop off, you still got to reserve the train. We bought tickets in the kiosks available throughout the train station.
• We woke up early at 6 am, took metro to Duamo and took photographs of the Milan Duamo and Cathedral.
• Had breakfast and took train to Venice (2.5 hrs). Reached Venice around 11:30 am.
• We got lost in searching for hotel, but we stopped searching for hotel and enjoyed the streets in Venice, took pictures and after 3 hours search we reached the hotel.
• If you are in Venice, you are gonna get lost even if you have a map. Enjoy it. Make sure you don’t reach Venice in the night, because you will not have anybody to help you find your hotel unless your hotel is near train station.
• We put our bags in the hotel, got a 48 hour Venice pass, took vaporetta to Murano Island. Murano Island is famous for glass work and we saw making of blown glass bowls. We spent around 2.5 hours in Murano island. Did some shopping too.
• We left to Burano Island after the shopping in Murano Island. Burano Island is famous for brightly colored houses and lace making. We walked through the streets, did some lace shopping as well.
• After that we took the Vaporetta to Lido beach, we reached Lido around 8 pm, right around sunset, enjoyed the beach. (*You can skip either Burano or Lido if you this feels tight)
• After that we took vaporetta #2 to grand canal and we reached our hotel.
Day 6:
• In the morning, we reached St Marks Square around 10 am. First we visited Basilica followed by Doges Palace. There is a secret itinerary tour in Doges Palace at 11:35 am; you have to pre book if you want to visit this. Then we took the lift up the Campaline tower and enjoyed the view from the top.
• After lunch we took Vaporetta #2 via Grand Canal to Rialto Bridge. This is a very famous bridge and good place to do shopping. We did some shopping here, it was expensive compared to other places. If you want to buy souveniers, buy it whereever you find it.
• We reached our hotel, and took the train to Florence at 6:30 pm (2 hour journey). This was the last train to Florence. Stayed in Florence near train station.
Day 7:
• We visited David’s (Michelangelo) statue and then the Duamo in Florence. Around 12 noon, we took train to Pisa. Pisa was 1 hour journey from Florence.
• From Pisa Centrale, we took a 10 min bus ride to Pisa Leaning Tower.
• There stood the stunning Leaning Tower, the Cathedral and the Bapistry all nearby. It was a white structure. We took pictures of all. We didn’t climb the top of tower as we have to pre book it.
• Around 5 pm we took the train to Rome (3.5 hours). Stayed in Rome. Next two nights we stayed in the same hotel.
Day 8:
• We bought Roma pass. This pass gives free metro access and free entry to first two sites. We visited Vatican City; saw St. Peters Basilica and Sistine Chapel. Enjoyed the paintings in Sistine Chapel. Carry lot of water and it is a long walk.
• After late lunch, we visited Emmanuel Monument, Capitoline Hill, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Piazza Navona.
Day 9:
• We saw the Roman Coliseum, Forum and Palantine Hill.
• In the evening we visited Spanish Steps and Borghese Gardens.
Day 10: We left in the morning to the airport and took the flight back to our country.
Things to Consider:
1. Swiss Pass: Buy Swiss Pass before you leave from http://www.raileurope.com/. This gives you freedom of hop on and hops off.
2. Italy Pass: We didn’t buy Italy pass as it was expensive to travel with pass and moreover we have to reserve seat before we get on to the train.
3. Venice pass: We got 48 hour Venice pass. You can buy this in Venice. This covered all vaporetta in Venice.
4. Roma Pass: We also got Roma pass which covered the public transport in Rome. With Roma pass, your visit to first two museums is free.
5.Even if you have swiss pass, you have to buy separate tickets to the mountains. Check the weather before buying the tickets, as the tickets are valid only on that day.
6. Check weather before going to mountains in Switzerland. There will be webcams in Hotels and tourist info centers at train stations.
7. Go early to train stations in Italy, as there will be queue to buy/reserve tickets. You can get the tickets easily through Kiosks in train stations if you get comfortable with it. You can cut the queue with this.
8. As we did backpack it was easy for us to walk through Venice and Pisa. If you have heavy luggages, all train stations we went had luggage storage. You can put your Euro currency and store your bags. It was convenient as well.
9. We didn’t have language barrier in Swiss or Italy. If you know English you can manage well.
10. Be aware that many museums in Rome are closed on Mondays and Vatican is closed on Sundays. Pope makes presence in St. Peters Basilica on Wednesday mornings. Plan accordingly.
11. Our 2 main criteria while selecting the hotels were if we reached the city by night or if we had to catch a train early the next day was to book a hotel near the train station and secondly is to have internet connection.So if we had to make any change of plans or to check the whether it was useful.
12.Be very careful with you handbags,wallets and all the baggages. Be extremely cautious..Experienced a few bad incidences with the baggages and pickpocketting.
13.Its extremely helpful if you have maps of the city that you travel otherwise don't worry you can always buy it or most hotels have a detailed map of the city (the ones we stayed gave us).So don't hesitate to ask.
14.Try and make a plan of all the places that you want to visit.Make a daily plan of the places of visit and print it out.We did make one and found it extremely helpful.
15.We also took print outs of the history of the places we visited so once we went there we did read through to understand more about the significance,importance of the places.we sure could appreciate it all!!
16. For the whole trip, we relied on public transport (bus/train/boat). You can also rent a car if you can understand the road signs and sign boards as they are in German and Italian language. Big cities like Rome have parking problems too. You can rent a scooter in Rome if you are comfortable driving it.
Italy Trains:
Eurostar (ES or Treni Eurostar Italia)
Italy's premier and latest train, (Dont confuse with Eurostar that plies the English channel). Seat reservations on Eurostar Italia are mandatory. Eurostar travels swiftly between major Italian cities.
Intercity and the newer Intercity Plus trains
Relatively fast trains that run the length of Italy, stopping at the large cities. First and second class service is available. Seat reservation is mandatory on the Intercity Plus trains, and the fee is included in the ticket price.
Regionale (Regional Trains)
These are the local trains, often running around work and school schedules. They are cheap and usually reliable--but seats can be hard to find on major routes. Many regional trains have only second class seats, but if available, consider first class.
Download Files:
1. Mt. Pilatus
2. Interlaken
3. Venice Map
4. Venice Vaporetta route
