Lonely Planet Switzerland , livre ebook

Switzerland

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to Switzerland
Switzerland's Top 15
Need to Know
What's New
If You Like...
Month by Month
Itineraries
Switzerland Outdoors
Regions at a Glance

On The Road

Geneva
Sights
Activities
Tours
Festivals & Events
Sleeping
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Lake Geneva & Vaud
Lausanne
Morges
Nyon
The Lavaux
Montreux
The Vaud Alps
Fribourg, Drei-Seen-Land & the Jura
Fribourg
Gruyeres
Charmey
Biel-Bienne
Ligerz
Murten
Neuchatel
Yverdon-les-Bains
La Chaux-de-Fonds
Porrentruy
Val de Travers
Mittelland
Bern
Emmental
Solothurn
Bernese Oberland
Interlaken
Jungfrau Region
Grindelwald
First
Kleine Scheidegg
Jungfraujoch
Lauterbrunnen
Wengen
Stechelberg
Murren
Gimmelwald
The Lakes
Thun
Spiez
Brienz
Meiringen
Kandersteg
Gstaad
Valais
Lower Valais
Martigny
Champery
Col du Grand St Bernard
Verbier
Sion
Sierre
Crans-Montana
Leukerbad
Zermatt
Saas Fee
Brig
Aletsch Glacier
Furka Pass
Ticino
Bellinzona
Lugano
Lago di Lugano
Gandria
Campione d'Italia
Morcote
Mendrisio & Around
Meride
Locarno
Ascona
Valle Maggia
Centovalli
Swiss Lakes
Central Switzerland
Lucerne
Lake Lucerne
Lake Uri
Brunnen
Schwyz
Einsiedeln
Engelberg
Zug
Andermatt
Northwestern Switzerland
Basel
Baden
Aarau
Alpine Villages
Zurich
Sights
Activities
Tours
Festivals & Events
Sleeping
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Rapperswil-Jona
Winterthur
Northeastern Switzerland
Schaffhausen
Rheinfall
Stein am Rhein
Lake Constance
Kreuzlingen
Arbon
Rorschach
St Gallen
Appenzell
Walensee
Glarus
Braunwald
Graubunden
Chur
Lenzerheide & Valbella
Arosa
Flims, Laax & Falera
Vals
Disentis/Muster
Bad Ragaz & Around
Klosters
Davos
Scuol
Samnaun
Mustair
Zernez
Celerina
St Moritz
Silvaplana
Sils-Maria
Pontresina
Val Poschiavo
Val Bregaglia
Liechtenstein
Vaduz
Malbun

Understand

Understand Switzerland
Switzerland Today
History
Swiss Way of Life
The Swiss Table
Swiss Wine

Survive

Directory AZ
Accommodation
Children
Discount Cards
Electricity
Embassies & Consulates
Gay & Lesbian Travellers
Health
Insurance
Internet Access
Legal Matters
Maps
Money
Opening Hours
Public Holidays
Safe Travel
Telephone
Time
Toilets
Tourist Information
Travellers with Disabilities
Visas
Volunteering
Work
Transport
Getting There & Away
Getting Around
Language
Behind the Scenes
Our Writers
Welcome to Switzerland

Look beyond the chocolate, cuckoo clocks and yodelling – contemporary Switzerland, land of four languages, is all about once-in-a-lifetime journeys, heart-racing Alpine pursuits and urban culture.


Great Outdoors
Switzerland's ravishing landscapes demand immediate action – grab boots, leap on board, toot bike bell and let spirits rip. Skiing and snowboarding in Graubünden, Bernese Oberland and Central Switzerland are winter choices. When pastures turn green, hiking and biking trails abound in glacier-encrusted mountain areas and lower down along lost valleys, glittering lake shores and pea-green vineyards. View the grandeur from a hot-air balloon or parachute, or afloat a white-water raft. Then there's those must-do-before-death experiences like encountering Eiger's chiselled north face up close or reaching crevassed ice on Jungfraujoch. Most extraordinary of all, you don’t need to be a mountaineer to do it.

Urban Edge
The perfect antidote to rural beauty is Switzerland's urban edge: capital Bern with its medieval old town and world-class modern art, deeply Germanic Basel and its bold architecture, chic Geneva astraddle Europe’s largest lake, party-loving Lausanne, tycoon magnet Zug and uber-cool Zürich with its riverside bars, reborn industrial west district and atypical street grit. Castles and craft beer, gigs and new-wave restaurants – you’ll find the lot in Swiss cities. And never has the urban been so close to the outdoors: within minutes you can reach nearby peaks, chill at waterfront bars with Alpine views, or enjoy invigorating swims in the Rhine, Aare and Limmat.

Alpine Tradition
Variety is the spice of rural life in this rich, earthy land where Alpine tradition is rooted in the agricultural calendar and soaring mountains are a dime a dozen. Travels are mapped by villages with timber granaries built on stilts to keep the rats out and chalet farmsteads brightened with red geranium blossoms. Ancient markets, folkloric fairs, flag waving and alp-horn concerts engrave the passing of seasons in every soul. And then there's the food: a hearty and flavoursome gastronomic celebration of gooey cheese desperate to be dipped in, along with velvety chocolate, autumnal game and air-dried meats.

Avant-Garde Culture
Ever innovative, the Swiss have always embraced the new and the experimental. Capturing the zeitgeist up and down the country are cultural venues, attention-grabbing architecture and avant-garde galleries. Bern's wavy Zentrum Paul Klee bearing architect Renzo Piano’s hallmark, Basel's Frank Gehry–designed Vitra Design Museum and astounding Fondation Beyeler, Lugano's Mario Botta–splashed centre and state-of-the-art MASI gallery, and Geneva's thought-provoking Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in a revamped 1950s factory are just the tip of the cultural iceberg. Even in back-of-beyond corners of the Alps you'll encounter unexpected nods to modern aesthetics, contemporary art and fresh-faced design.

A hiker with a view of the Matterhorn, Zermatt | Olga Danylenko/Shutterstock ©


Why I Love Switzerland
By Kerry Christiani, Writer
Der Berg ruft (the mountain calls) and nowhere more so than in Switzerland. My first forays into the country, some 15 years ago, had me hooked: riding a little red train from pine to peak, waking to jangling cowbells on remote pastures, hiking in the shadow of glacier-encrusted summits to rocky ledges where ibex leap, swimming in cold, crystalline lakes, snowshoeing through forests of frosty white. Switzerland effortlessly intermingles the great outdoors and urban culture. Standing on a bridge in Zürich, with the Alps on the horizon, a Swiss friend once said: 'God gave us everything'. Right he was.
Switzerland's Top 15

Matterhorn
No mountain has as much pulling power or natural magnetism, or is so easy to become obsessed with, as this charismatic peak – a beauty from birth that demands to be admired, ogled and repeatedly photographed at sunset, sunrise, in different seasons and from every last infuriating angle. And there is no finer place to pander to the Matterhorn’s every last topographic need than Zermatt, one of Europe’s most desirable Alpine resorts, in fashion with the skiing, climbing, hiking and hip hobnobbing set since the 19th century.

Matterhorn | EMPERORCOSAR/SHUTTERSTOCK ©


Top Experiences
Hiking in the Swiss National Park
Nowhere else in Europe is more synonymous with magnificent and mighty hiking beneath eagle-dotted skies than Switzerland, and its high-altitude national park , created a century ago, is the place to do it. Follow trails through flower-strewn meadows to piercing blue lakes, knife-edge ravines, rocky outcrops and Alpine huts where shepherds make summertime cheese with cows’ milk, taken fresh that morning from the herd. It's nature gone wild and on the rampage, and is a rare and privileged glimpse of Switzerland before the dawn of tourism.

Swiss National Park | Radius Images / Getty Images ©


Top Experiences
Aletsch Glacier
One of the world’s natural marvels, this mesmerising glacier of gargantuan proportions in the Upper Valais is tantamount to a 23km-long, five-lane highway of ice powering between mountain peaks at altitude. Its ice is glacial blue and 900m thick at its deepest point. The view of Aletsch from Jungfraujoch will make your heart sing, but for a hardcore adrenalin surge nothing beats getting up close: hike between crevasses with a mountain guide from Riederalp or ski above the glacier on snowy pistes in Bettmeralp.

Aletsch Glacier | PETE SEAWARD/LONELY PLANET ©


Top Experiences
Lake Geneva
The emerald vines marching uphill in perfect unison from the shores of Lake Geneva in the Lavaux are staggering. But the urban viewpoint from which to admire and experience Europe’s largest lake is Geneva, French-speaking Switzerland’s most cosmopolitan city, where canary-yellow mouettes ('seagulls') ferry locals across the water and Mont Blanc peeps at the action from above. Strolling Old Town streets, savouring a vibrant cafe society, paddle-boarding on the lake and making the odd dash beneath the iconic pencil fountain is what life’s about for the 180 nationalities living here.

Lake Geneva | ANTARES71/GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Glacier Express
It’s among the world’s most storied train rides, linking two of Switzerland’s glitziest Alpine resorts. Hop aboard the red train with super-panoramic windows in St Moritz or Zermatt, and savour shot after cinematic shot of green peaks, glistening Alpine lakes, glacial ravines and other hallucinatory natural landscapes. Pulled by steam engine when it first puffed out of the station in 1930, the Glacier Express traverses 91 tunnels and 291 bridges on its famous journey. Lunch in the vintage restaurant car or bring your own Champagne picnic.

Glacier Express | PETER STEIN/SHUTTERSTOCK ©


Top Experiences
Romance in Montreux
As if being host to one of the world’s most famous jazz festivals, with open-air concerts on the shore of Lake Geneva, is not enough, Montreux has a castle to add to the French-style romance. From the well-known lakeside town with a climate so mild that palm trees grow, a flower-framed footpath follows the water south to Château de Chillon . Hist