Country Roads of Switzerland

You'll arrive in Lucerne between lake and mountains, where the covered Chapel Bridge crosses the River Reuss and the water catches its dark timber roof and octagonal tower in wavering reflections. After checking into your hotel, you’ll join your Travel Director and fellow travellers for dinner at a local restaurant. Over your first bites, you begin getting to know the people who will share the next two weeks with you.

Your MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience begins as you ride the solar-powered cable car towards Mount Stanserhorn’s summit, standing on its open upper deck as lakes lie far below and Alpine ridges climb towards the horizon. On a clear day, you can look beyond Switzerland to Alsace in France and Germany’s Black Forest. At the summit, follow winding paths across the high slopes, watching for marmots scurrying between the rocks. A Swiss ranger may share how these mountain plants and animals are protected. Back in Lucerne, cross its wooden bridges, look up into the ornate interior of its Baroque church and pause before the Lion Monument, its wounded lion carved into the rock. With the afternoon yours, perhaps you take a walk beside the lake, browse for a Swiss timepiece or let a piece of chocolate melt slowly on your tongue.

You’ll follow your Local Specialist, a local English teacher, to the Cathedral of St Vincent, the Federal Palace and the city’s floral displays. At the Ogre Fountain, you listen to water tumble into the basin beneath its brightly painted figure, while carved bears, a piper and a drummer march around the pedestal before you leave Bern for the broad green valleys of the Vaud Alps. Through the window, you watch rows of vines climb the lower slopes while alpine meadows fill the valley beneath snow-bright summits. In Gruyères, the town that gave its name to the famous cheese, you’ll wander the main street and climb towards the 13th-century castle. From Montreux, you travel beside Lake Geneva to a winery, where you raise a cool glass of local wine while the water stretches out towards the shore. Over a light Farm-to-Table dinner, you’ll taste produce sourced nearby and hear how the family is preserving the estate for future generations on your MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience.

Across Chillon Castle’s drawbridge, you'll enter stone courtyards and great halls once used by the Dukes of Savoy before descending into vaulted chambers carved from the island’s rock. In the prison, you look up at Gothic arches while light from Lake Geneva flickers over the walls. Among centuries of names cut into the stone, you search for the signature attributed to Lord Byron, whose poem The Prisoner of Chillon made the fortress famous. Back in Montreux, the afternoon is yours, whether you explore beyond your quayside hotel or stay close to the water. Perhaps you claim a quiet hour beside the lake, listening to the water lap against the quay while the Alps unfold in pale layers beyond the opposite shore.

Approaching Geneva, you can trace the Jet d’Eau’s white plume as it vaults above the harbour and breaks into mist. At the Floral Clock, you read the time from hands laid across a dial planted with thousands of blooms. From your first-class seat on the cruise, you feel the boat’s low thrum as Geneva’s quays and gardens recede behind you. With the evening at leisure, you might linger along the promenade as the lights of Geneva begin to shimmer softly across the bay.

Through the upper Rhône Valley, you’ll travel to Martigny, where the Roman amphitheatre’s worn stone tiers curve in a broad oval beneath the Valais mountains. At Barryland, you’ll meet St Bernards among meadow, rock and Valais shrubs, their broad ears flicking and heavy white-and-russet coats stirring as they move through the grass. You’ll hear how generations of these dogs searched snow and fog for travellers in danger. In Sion, you’ll see the cathedral and Old Town Hall, then look above the old town roofs to Valère and Tourbillon, their fortifications poised on twin rocky hills. From the cogwheel carriage, you watch the Matter Valley open towards snow-lined peaks, the Vispa winding between green slopes as you climb towards traffic-free Zermatt. At a local restaurant, you’ll end the day over dinner with your travelling companions, high among the mountains.

With a summer day in Zermatt entirely your own, you might cool off with a swim or follow a trail through larch woods, listening as mountain streams tumble between the trees. Perhaps take the cable car to Klein Matterhorn, watching summer greenery fall away until snow and glacier ice fill the horizon and 14 glaciers stretch across three countries. At the Church Bridge, you gaze beyond the chalet roofs to the Matterhorn, its pyramid perhaps crowned by a ribbon of cloud. In a village bakery, choose a slice of Kuchen and let your fork sink through the soft crumb.

From Täsch, you’ll travel to Brig before the road curls towards the 2,006-metre Simplon Pass, lifting you above the valley until the Alps stretch away in broken lines of rock and shadow. In Stresa, perhaps join today’s Optional Experience to Isola Bella, where a Baroque palace rises above ten flower-filled terraces and white peacocks roam beneath a two-century-old camphor tree. By evening, you’ll arrive in Lugano, with Lombard-style buildings lining the old town and Italian voices drifting across its piazzas.

Beneath Bellinzona’s crenellated towers, you’ll meet your Local Specialist and pass through arched gateways into the cool courtyards of its UNESCO-listed fortress. From the ramparts, Bellinzona’s rooftops spread below as you hear how the three castles once controlled passage through the Ticino valley. Through San Bernardino and Tiefencastel, the young Rhine runs alongside the road, its narrow current curling between pasture and pine. Crossing the Julier Pass, you watch the landscape open into pale granite, tawny grass and broad sweeps of high country. Entering St Moritz, you’ll pass Belle Époque hotels and sgraffito-patterned houses, their carved walls and ornate balconies set against the Grisons Alps in the Engadine Valley.

With a day at leisure and mountain railways pass from your Travel Director (when available), you decide how high to go, travelling by cable car, funicular or chairlift. At the upper stations, you’ll follow the Upper Engadine lakes as they stretch through the valley in long ribbons of luminous blue between broad slopes and granite ridges. Perhaps you’ll take the Bernina train, looking across the Morteratsch Glacier from the Montebello Curve as crystal-white ice fills the valley beneath dark summits. Near the pass, milky-blue Lago Bianco lies beside the rails, pale against bare rock as you travel along its shore.

Aboard the Glacier Express, you’ll cross the Landwasser Viaduct as the train bends above a forested ravine, its arches seeming to float between trees and sky. The route descends through the Oberalp Valley to Andermatt, where you’ll rejoin your coach and enter the Schöllenen Gorge. Sheer walls rise close to the road as the river races beneath Devil’s Bridge. Leaving the narrow gorge behind, you’ll enter the broader Grindelwald Valley, with the Wetterhorn peaks shining above pasture and the Lütschine scattering light beside the road. In Lauterbrunnen, you lift your gaze to Staubbach Falls as it drops 297 metres from the plateau and loosens into fine spray above the valley floor.

With the day entirely your own beneath the Eiger, you might swim, browse Grindelwald’s village shops or follow a summer trail through wildflower meadows scented with pine towards high lakes among the ridges. For a loftier adventure, board the cogwheel train to Jungfraujoch, where the station opens onto a white expanse of snow and glacier ice at 3,454 metres, even in the height of summer. Inside the Ice Palace, you’ll pass through corridors carved into the glacier, their mirror-smooth walls catching the light around eagles, penguins and bears sculpted from ice. A lift carries you to the Sphinx Observation Deck, high above the Aletsch Glacier as it curves between four-thousand-metre peaks and descends towards valleys far below.

Beside Lake Brienz, you'll enter a village where generations of carvers have shaped curling leaves, fine ornament and lifelike animals from blocks of timber. At the Jobin Swiss Woodcarving Centre, you’ll move from the craft’s early 19th-century beginnings to figures so finely worked that feathers, fur and folds seem pressed into the grain. Beyond Brienz, you’ll cross the Brünig Pass and descend beside Lakes Lungern and Sarnen, their long shorelines curving beneath wooded hills. Along Bahnhofstrasse, watch faces and jewellery gleam behind glass as your Travel Director guides you towards the twin towers of the Grossmünster beside the River Limmat and the Fraumünster on the opposite bank. As wine is poured at a local restaurant, you share dinner with your travelling companions and toast the miles behind you.

Say goodbye to Switzerland and the travelling companions who have shared the journey with you. Your final hotel is at the airport, a short walk from the terminal, making your departure simple and transfer-free.