Switzerland Travel Forum

Hi All:

We will be arriving in Rome on September 10th and departing on October 5th after a one week cruise beginning on September 27th. Looking to visit Switzerland for a week after arrival. Would like suggestions of an ideal place in Switzerland to serve as home base and perhaps to day trips from. Absolutely need great internet connectabllity from our ideal swiss place. Will also appreciate suggestions of how to get from Rome and return. Thanks for any and all ideas.

I will give you the location of where we stayed for 3 nights last October. The town of Lauterbrunnen is about a 20 minute train ride from Interlaken which is where you can make connections north to Lucerne (2 hours) and Zurich and west to Bern (1 hour). I am not sure of connections south or east. You should have no problem with internet connectivity here. You can check out my VT pages for all locations I mentioned here.

Thanks Rich for your suggestion. Will check out your pages on Lauterbrunnen.

If I had a dollar for every time Rich recommended Lauterbrunnen...

Indeed, lauterbrunnen is a fine option. The Hotel Silberhorn (which I recommend) has free wireless internet in public areas.
Hotel Oberland (which Rich recommends) has wireless in public areas too, but it costs 5 CHF an hour (ouch).
Alternatively, Hotel Schutzen also appears nice and has free wireless in public areas too.
Lauterbrunnen is quite central as far as Switzerland is concerned, so you could do comfortable day trips into the Wallis (Zermatt etc), hiking in the Jungfrau region, Luzern, Bern, Gstaad, Gruyere, etc. The hotels mentioned can all be booked online at booking.com (http://www.booking.com/searchresults.html?aid=321215&city=-2552811) for the best price possible. We always book there.

Another possibility is Gstaad. The Hotel Gstaaderhof there also has free wifi and is a nice base. This would leave you closer to day trips towards Lake Geneva, but with slower trips towards Luzern etc.

There are so many options. It really comes down to what you want to do on your day trips? Wildlife, scenery, mountains, lakes, cities, shopping? Maybe I can offer some alternative suggestions in quieter corners of the country if I know what you are interested in.

So far as getting here... train or car. You could possibly find a cheap flight between Rome and Zürich or Basel, but it may not be worth it (excepting the time you would save, and the fact that the Italian trains are very unreliable).
Again, it depends on how you like to travel. Do you like to stop at random to take pictures, or eat at that neat little roadside restaurant? Or do you just want to sit back with a book and let the scenery flash by?

Greg, I think the "honeymoon" experience will be with me for a long while since the weather was so perfect. I'm sure that if it had rained or was overcast while we were there it would have been a little less of a fantastic experience.

But as I keep looking at your pictures on your other sites I'm anxious to get back to Switzerland as fast as I can so that I can see all the other beautiful sites. Maybe you can even be my tour guide next time :).

Would be a pleasure Rich... and I am not expensive. Just a good meal here and there, and an excuse to show off more of Switzerland.

And I think you know I am not being mean, Lauterbrunnen is beautiful and I love that you loved it so much!

Greg, So where was your new homepage picture taken?

That is a little (by Swiss standards) mountain in the Canton of Uri called Ruosalp. You would find the closest building at Balm or Klausenpass on Google Maps.

There is a Ruosalp gallery on my site. A nice area, but just one of about 20,000 to choose from out here.

When are you folk coming back then?

Unfortunately, not anytime soon. We will visit Italy and Spain at least before a Swiss return trip.

Thanks to all for their input. Appreciate!