Travelling to Central Switzerland?
DOs and DON'Ts
On September 2005 I went to Heildelberg (Germany 
), central Switzerland
and
Stresa (Italy )
(see map) with my wife. We don't like arranged travels and we
prefer to travel on our own, because we think is the only way you can get in touch with
the real country and its people. This way of travelling is harder and more expensive than
others, but also more pleasant, relaxing and, that's the best, gives you a different point
of view on the culture and way of life.
After my experience here you have my advice if you
plan to travel on your own to these areas. You have to understand that
this is MY PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW and that it is not my intention to
criticize the people or culture of any of the mentioned places. You also must take into
account that these observations are from year 2005. Things might have
changed (either in the right or in the wrong way) since then. You must
also bear in mind that this is not a travel guide, but just the description
of my own journey and my own impressions. If you don't agree with
some of the opinions below just write your own WEB page with you own opinions,
but don't bother me.
| Legend: | ||
Excellent / Specially interesting |
Very good / Very interesting |
Good / Interesting |
Mediocre / Not very interesting |
 Very
bad / Not interesting |
|
Click on it for pictures of the area |
Click on it for hotels in the city/area |
|
| ___________________________________________________________________________________________ | ||
,
that we had never visited before. However due to the fact the Weinheim's VHF
amateur radio meeting was nearly the same dates I decided to extend the
travel a little and stay a couple of days in Heidelberg ,
a wonderful town that I had already visited twice in the past. Furthermore,
I was interested to get a first impression of the lakes area in northern
Italy, so I also planned to stay a couple of nights in Stresa, near the
"Lago Maggiore" and the Borromeic Islands ., hire a car there
and drive south, leaving it at the airport of Milan , however I didn't
manage to get any cheap flight for those days and additionally the fees for
returning the car from Milan to Frankfurt were really expensive. So I had
to look for other alternatives and finally the best and cheapest option was
to take my own car with the ferry to Barcelona and drive all the way to
Germany. This would mean I had to extend the journey for an additional
day, but...
from Palma de Mallorca
to Barcelona . We arrived at about 13:00 and
quickly left Barcelona towards the French border, as I had to drive about
400 km to Orange
(France) where I had booked a room in the hotel
Arene. Here the fun began. Right after leaving Barcelona it started
pouring (with the resulting bottleneck in the motorway), but some time later
weather became better and I innocently thought everything was over. Silly guy I
was... Some km before Narbonne (France) there was another bottleneck and this time
it seamed to be something really serious. Tuned the car radio to the
traffic information frequency (that fortunately broadcasts in English, apart
from French) and heard that the A9 motorway was closed all the way to Orange
(about 150 km) because of a flooding and that it was also impossible to take
any secondary road. I began to worry when several firefighter's trucks
towing boats passed at full speed making sound their sirens.... Well, it was clear that we were not going to sleep in
Orange that night, so I drove out of the motorway as soon as possible (some
hours afterwards...) and started looking for a hotel where to spend the
night. I used the laptop to connect to Internet using the GPRS phone, and
looked for available
hotels
in Narbonne. After some phone calls I finally found a room in the
hotel
Novotel
where we got very late and concerned about the possibility of not
being able to get to Germany the day after, if the roads were still closed.
(Germany) by the A5, where I had booked a room in the hotel
Neckar ,
that is very well located in the banks of the river Neckar and very close to
the old town, but that unfortunately needs an important upgrade of the
decoration and furniture of the rooms and reception. doing some shopping and I
went to the Amateur Radio meeting of Weinheim (about 30 km away). Then, in
the afternoon we had a nice time together walking by the beautiful old town
,
the commercial Haupstrasse street and the bridges over the Neckar
river. We
didn't visit the castle
because I had already been there twice and my wife was tired, but I
can certainly recommend a visit to it. Its garden is specially charming. The
following morning I wanted to go walking by the well known Philosophenweg
(philosophers path)
as I hadn't have time to do it in my former
visits. This is a really beautiful walk that begins in the banks of the
river, first by a steep asphalted road and then by a path that offers
impressive views of the city, the castle and the river.
(Switzerland). Its old town
is really a jewel, with the old covered
wooden bridges and the painted facades of the houses, everything at the shore of the
Vierwaldstätter lake. In Luzern
we stayed at
the hotel Continental Park ,
that is very well located a few hundred meters away from the old town, the
train station and the tourist information office. The room was modern and
comfortable, so I can certainly recommend this hotel in spite of its quite
high price (Hotels in Switzerland are quite expensive, in general), a small town in a valley surrounded by green pastures
and woods . Before visiting his impressive antenna installation he kindly
took us to a small mountain nearby in which top there is a iron tower from
the Wold Ward II, and from which top
it's said that you can watch half of
the territory of Switzerland, plus some mountains in Austria, Germany and
France. Unfortunately the sky was not very clear that day, but even so the
view was wonderful. Afterwards we went to HB9Q's radio station
where Dan
showed me everything and kindly invited us to share a bottle of delicious
French wine. I sincerely want to thank Dan for his hospitality and for a
memorable evening.
to Pilatus mountain.
You can buy the tickets at the Tourist Information Office (train station),
which price is acceptable. This is not an organized excursion but you simply
buy the tickets for the different transports (boat, cogwheel railway,
cableway, bus..) and you can use them at any time you want along the day. First,
you take a boat in Luzerne that crosses the Vierwaldstätter lake
(making
several stops along the shore) and the Alpnacher lake. Then, in
Alpnachstad you take a cogwheel railway (the steepest of the world) that
takes you to Pilatus Kulm (2132 m. high). The views from this
railway , while
going up in the mountain are really impressive , both over the lakes and to
the surrounding mountains. Pilatus Kulm
is a touristic resort where there are two hotels, restaurants, etc. and
from where you have an splendid view
of some of the highest mountains
of the Alps, covered by the snow all the year. Having lunch in the terrace of the
restaurant, in this singular location, is something you must not
miss. From
Pilatus Kulm there are some short and easy walks that take you to the
surrounding peaks nearby (Esel, Oberhaupt, etc.), where the views are even
more impressive. When you make the hard decision to leave Pilatus Kulm you
take an aerial cableway
that in a couple of minutes leaves you in
Fräkmüntegg (1416 m.) where you take one the aerial panorama gondolas that
slowly go down to Kriens. There you finally have to take the bus number 1
that leaves you in Luzern., not far away from Luzern. This city, between the
Brienzers and Thuner lakes (from where it names come) is crossed by a
channel that interconnect both lakes. The city of Interlaken
is beautiful and worth a visit, but the most outstanding are the views from
it, and specially the view of the close Jungfrau mountain . We stayed at the
hotel
Goldey ,
that is located in a restful area, at the shore of the channel and at a few
minutes walk from the commercial area of the city. The view from the balcony
of our room was simply unforgettable (make sure you book a room looking to
the channel) and my only complains were the quite small room
and bathroom. After having lunch in the pleasant terrace of the restaurant
Löwel
(you must taste their "Filet Maison"), in the afternoon we drove to
Grindenwald ,
in which surroundings
we made a pleasant walk by the path that takes to the 890 step stair going up
to the Oberergletscher glacier, and later enjoyed watching the sun go down behind the 4000 m. high mountains
that surrounded us.
,
a touristic resort, 3475 m. high, between the Jungfrau and the Mönch
mountains. The best way do to this is a round trip by train and cogwheel
railway, but unfortunately the recent flooding had broken the railway of
the train between Interlaken and Grindenwald, so we had to go up and down by
the same route. I drove to Lauterbrunnen (it's also possible to go there by
train from Interlaken) where we took the cogwheel railway that goes to
Kleine Sheidegg (2061 m) where you have to change to another train that goes
up to Jungfraujoch along a really long and steep tunnel across the mountain.
When you finally go out of the train station to the main building (hotel,
restaurants, etc) the first view you have through the windows is unbelievable. The
immensity of the snowy mountains and the glacier (Grosser
Aletschgletscher) are
overwhelming. Once you have recovered from this initial impression it's time
to explore the complex, which different locations are connected by kilometres
of pedestrian tunnels. One of them takes you outside, right on
top of the glacier
(remember to wear winter clothes, as the temperature is
hardly over zero even in summer months, and also sunglasses to protect the
eyes from the bright snow). There is also a lift that takes you
to the observatory of Jungfraubahnen from which terrace there is a also
super view
of the opposite slope. Also interesting is the visit to the
"Ice palace" , a set of tunnels and caves
dug inside the
glacier's ice and where there are some nice ice sculptures. Unless you are used
to these heights you will possibly notice some headache and that you easily
get tired when making any small effort, these are the effects of the
mountain sickness that will not disappear till you go down.
(2165 m) by a good road along the
valley
of the river Aare . From there you go down to
Gletsch , a small village right
at the end of a glacier (Rhonegleitscher) where the river Rhone is born . Then
the road follows the river down the valley of Goms, what provides a
magnificent view
of the Matterhorn mountain emerging at the end of the valley. In
Brig we took the road to Simplonpass (2005 m)
from where you also have an
impressive view of the Jungfrau and Mönch mountains (where we had been some
days before) before definitively leaving the domain of the high Alps. When
going up to Simplonpass we stopped to lunch at the hotel Ganterwald,
just beside the road. This is a small and familiar restaurant ruled by the
family Pfammatter-Borter and I can certainly recommend their home-made
dishes .
Then the road goes down from Simplonpass towards the Divedro valley, where you enter
Italy and not later we reached your final stop, the city of Stresa. (Italy)
is a residential town with lots of villas surrounded by nice gardens,
although some of them are abandoned, what makes the town seem a little
decadent. However it's promenade along the shore of the lake Maggiore
is
very beautiful and in its old town (really small) you can buy some
souvenirs. In Stresa
we stayed in the hotel Della Torre ,
that was good in general, although with some deficiencies (small breakfast
bufet, no minibar in the room, some noise from the railway and cars). If you walk by the promenade of Stresa
you will surely be besieged by boat owners that will offer you to take you
to the islands by less than the official price (..well...that's Italy...).
After kindly thank them for their offers I went to the Tourist Information
Office and asked for the "official" excursions to the Islands
handled by Navigazione
Lago Maggiore. To my surprise the price of the ticket for a one day
round trip to the 3 islands was only 10 Euro per person, less than the other
"pirate" offers I had got before.
.
Here we visited the interesting palace of the Borromeo's family and the
nice gardens, distributed in terraces, that cover almost the rest of the island.
Then took the next boat to the very close Isola Superiore
(also know as Isola dei Pescatori). This small island holds a very
typical fishermen village, with narrow streets now full of souvenir shops
and restaurants. This is definitively the place to have lunch in this
excursion, so we went to Albergo Ristorante Verbano
where I enjoyed a fabulous perch fish together with a bottle of
regional wine, following the recommendations of the kind staff of the
restaurant. As soon as we managed to get up from the chair we took another
boat to Isola Madre
, the
largest of the 3 Borromeo Islands which main interest are the incredible and
huge gardens which have preserved their natural aspect and the presence of
exotic birds all around.Click on the links of the map below to see some photos of the area in my photo album.
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