Swagatam Tours Private Limited

Holidays of Europe

Switzerland Tours

• Introduction
Switzerland may be neutral but it is certainly not flavourless. The fusion of German, French and Italian ingredients has formed a robust national culture, and the country's alpine landscapes have enough zing to reinvigorate the most jaded traveller.

Goethe summed up Switzerland succinctly as a combination of 'the colossal and the well-ordered'. You can be sure that your trains and letters will be on time. The tidy, just-so precision of Swiss towns is tempered by the lofty splendour of the landscapes that surround them.

Switzerland conjures up a fair swag of clichés: irresistible chocolates, yodelling Heidis, humourless bankers, international bureaucracies and an orderly, anally-retentive and rather bland national persona. But Harry Lime was wrong on more than one account when, in The Third Man, he said 500 years of Swiss democracy and peace had produced nothing more than the cuckoo clock. For a start, the Germans invented this monstrous timepiece; secondly, the Swiss, who are a brainy lot, have won more Nobel Prizes and registered more patents per capita than any other nation on earth.

• When to Visit Switzerland
You can visit Switzerland any time throughout the year. Summer lasts roughly from June to September, and offers the most pleasant climate for outdoor pursuits. Unfortunately, you won't be the only tourist during this period, so prices can be high, accommodation hard to find and the mainstream sights crowded. You'll find much better deals and fewer crowds in the shoulder seasons of April-May and late-September-October.

If you're keen on winter sports, resorts in the Alps begin operating in late-November, move into full swing around Christmas, and close down when the snow begins to melt in April.

• Attraction in Switzerland
» Château de Chillon
Chillon Castle receives more visitors than any other historical building in Switzerland. Occupying a stunning position right on Lake Geneva, the fortress caught the public imagination when Lord Byron wrote about the fate of Bonivard, a follower of the Reformation who was chained to the fifth pillar in the dungeons for four years in the 16th century.

The castle, still in excellent condition, dates from the 11th century and has been much modified and enlarged since then. It's worth spending an afternoon viewing the tower, courtyards and dungeons.

» Geneva
Geneva is Switzerland's second-largest city, but surely the most international: a third of the population is from elsewhere. The city is crowded with museums, has many excellent cultural events, even more good restaurants, and is ideally placed for quick hops to the Swiss and French Alps.

Geneva is a great place to get stuck on a rainy day; it's packed with museums, many with a horological bent. Outside, the towering Jet d'Eau and the pleasant gardens tempt feet in the direction of the lake. There's also plenty of classic Swiss kitsch to combat the high-brow culture.

» Great St Bernard Pass Hospice Museum
Perhaps the Great St Bernard Pass should be renamed the Great Alsation Pass. It might save the local rescue dogs at the local hospice some embarrassment. These days the affable Alsatian breed does the rescuing. The museum explains the importance of the monks' rescue work and religious vocation, which dates back to the 11th century.

» Jungfrau Region
Some of Switzerland's most magnificent views are found around the peaks of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger, their rugged flanks made even more awe-inspiring by the greens, and golds of nearby hills and valleys. The best rail trip (it's the highest railway in Europe) cuts through both the Eiger and the Mönch before terminating at the tip of the majestic Jungfraujoch.

» Lake Thun
For some great castle touring head, to the Lake Thun area in central Switzerland, just south of Bern. In the town of Thun itself, you'll find the 12th-century Schloss Thun on the hill. It contains a good historical museum and there are fine views from the turrets of the Romanesque tower.

One of the best castles around the lake is the 13th-century Schloss Oberhofen, which was once held by the Habsburgs; it has a good collection of grand furniture, portraits and weapons, and even boasts a Turkish smoking room. The gardens were landscaped in the 19th century and are a fine place for a stroll. Schloss Hunegg, at nearby Hilterfingen, was built in the 1860s and renovated in 1900. It's a fascinating mix of neo-Renaissance and art nouveau styles and has a funky split-level bathroom complete with a nickel-plated bathtub. If you're a castle buff, you can squeeze in a visit to all three fortifications in a day-trip by boat.

• Off the Beaten Track
» Ascona
The relatively low-lying canton of Ticino, situated south of the Alps, enjoys a Mediterranean climate and imports a distinctive Italian flavour to Switzerland. The village of Ascona on the shore of Lake Maggiore is a regional centre for the arts and its backstreets are filled with art galleries and craft shops. The community of artists and intellectuals living here at the beginning of the century embraced the 'back to nature' movement and welcomed the exiled Lenin for a time. The Museo Comunale D'Arte Moderna includes paintings by artists connected with the town, among them Paul Klee, Hans Arp, Ben Nicholson and Alexej Jawlensky.

» Estavayer-le-Lac
This small resort on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel has a perfectly preserved medieval centre, but the real allure is its collection of 130-year-old frogs in the Regional Museum. The stuffed slimeys are the work of 19th-century eccentric, François Perrier, who spent much of his leisure time killing frogs, preserving their skins, and filling them with sand.

He then arranged the frogs in parodies of human situations - courting, studying, playing games, etc - and ornamented them with props. Go figure.

» Franches Montagnes
Overlooked by most visitors, this pretty woodlands area in the Jura mountain chain has hiking trails and cross-country ski trails. Horse-riding is also popular, and the horses in the area are supposedly renowned for their gentleness and calm disposition. The main town in the region is Saignelégier, which hosts the national horse show in August.

• Reaching Switzerland
The main entry points for international flights are Zürich and Geneva. Basel, Bern and Lugarno airports also receive international flights. There is no departure tax when flying out of Switzerland. Trains are a popular and convenient way to travel to Switzerland, and European rail passes make train travel affordable. Buses tend to be slower and less comfortable, though sometimes cheaper. Getting to Switzerland by road is simple, since there are fast, well-maintained motorways through all surrounding countries. If you have time and money, it's possible to get to Switzerland by boat along the Rhine all the way from Amsterdam. Switzerland can also be reached by lake steamer ferries from Germany via Lake Constance, from Italy via Lake Maggiore and from France via Lake Geneva.

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