Swiss Winter Wonderland - Lucerne, Zermatt, & Zurich
Getting around
Lucerne (2 Days)
Lucerne is SUCH a beautiful town! A 45 minute train ride from Zurich, it easy to take a day trip, but I'd recommend spending a couple nights to take in the town.
Where we stayed
What we did
Day 1
8:00 AM:
After landing in Zurich, take train to the main Zurich Train Station (Train Stop: Zurich HB) then hop on the train to Lucerne (Train Stop: Luzern)
10:00 AM:
Drop your stuff at your hotels and grab a bite to eat! If you stay at the hotel recommended, Taburetti will be right around the corner.
If you're there on a Tuesday/Saturday there is a famers market where you can buy products from local vendors!
12:00 - 2:00PM:
Take a private walking tour of Lucerne. Use the link below to book a private walking tour. We had a new guide named Livio and he gave us great details of the history, his family's experience of growing up in Lucerne, and recommendations.
We like taking the tour first to orient ourselves to the town and picking where we want to go for the rest of our time.
Late Afternoon:
Shopping and explore the town. Honestly I was so tired from traveling so we took a break and showered!
Dinner:
For dinner, we went to Rathaus Braueri. This place brews their own beer and has a wide variety of Swiss dishes such as bratwurst, rosti (large potato pancakes), etc. Highly recommend their chicken special with wedge fries!
Evening:
If you're visiting in January, you may be able to catch the Lucerne light show! There are multiple light shows throughout the town projected onto the outside walls of buildings or throughout the town.
Day 2
Unfortunately it was raining on our second day, so the activities were limited. So we opted for a 6-hours ferry around Lake Lucerne! The ferry stops at multiple towns along the lake, but due to the winter time the ferry time table is much more limited than the summer time tables.
Notes about the ferry:
- There are first class and second class tickets, while we did first, second class seemed to be just as nice and the views were all the same.
- Full food and beverage service, but they don't seem to mind if you bring your own food. If you're looking to cut cost, go to the local market and grab lunch supplies
- If you don't want to sail for 6 hours, you can ferry all the way to the end then take the train from the last town. The train ride back would be a hour long.
Early Evening:
Since we only munched on the boat, we went to a local Vietnamese take-away restaurant since we knew we had many days of Swiss food ahead of us.
We ended our time in Lucerne at the hotel playing cards games and relaxing.
Additional Lucerne Recommendations
We didn't have time for these but this recommendations came from research and our tour guide
Zermatt (5 Days)
The best thing to do in Zermatt is take advantage of all of the winter sports!!
Where we stayed
This place has a DIRECT view of the Matterhorn!
Ski Passes
Ski Rental
Ski Lessons
Group lessons can be SO affordable! We used this vendors and it was 300USD for a private lesson, our ski instructor Polyan was able to cater to our group of 3 based on ski level and made sure we had fun and learned new technique.
You can have up to 6 people in your group.
Where to Eat
On the Mountain
Off the Mountain
Where to Apres
Apres is very important to ending your ski day!
Where to Drink @ Night
Other things to know
- Ski lifts close at 4!
- You can buy passes that will let you ski into Italy! If you don't and accidentally ski to Italy its about 14 euros per ski lift ride to get you back to Zermatt
Zurich (1 Day)
We only had about a day in Zurich, so we walked around and went to the Lindt House of Chocolate!
Where we ate
The home for unique & authentic travel
