Search results for

Overview

An hour outside of Zurich is Mount Rigi, one of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen. Departing from Zurich on a day tour, we drove by bus to Lucerne where we were lead to a cable car depot at the foothill of the mountain before continuing uphill by train. This took us close to the summit where we carried on by foot. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. The air was fresh, the lake crystal clear, the sky blue, the sun bright and the experience priceless. Once atop the mountain within the Alps, we were in awe of the spectacular panoramic views, we contemplated life and took time out for lunch at the hilltop restaurant before heading back to Lucerne by ferry before dusk. As you see here, it was a joyful day. We did flips and cartwheels amid the Alps to mark the success of our accomplished journey. It’s most definitely a day I won’t forget.

After nine years and nearly $600 million, it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that the re-opening of the iconic Bürgenstock resort—set on 148 acres of ridgeline above Lake Lucerne—was one of the most widely anticipated of the decade. Originally opened in 1873, the family-owned resort grew into a moneyed playground, where Hollywood royalty romped (Sophia Loren lived here for many years) and wed (Audrey Hepburn married Mel Ferrer in a chapel on the property). It then endured several years of decline, after which Qatar state fund bought the property, closed it, and began planning a stunning transformation. Bürgenstock now includes four hotels, 12 restaurants and bars, 67 residences, and a 107,000-square-foot spa featuring three pools (including a heated outdoor infinity pool overlooking the lake), hammans, saunas, and private treatment rooms. Both the 102-room Bürgenstock Hotel and the 160-room Waldhotel—the latter a state-of-the-art medical spa and hotel—are brand-new, five-star additions. The historic Taverne 1879 and Palace Hotel, built in 1904, have also undergone considerable refurbishment. The real star, however, is the dramatic view, optimized from every angle—including at the Spices Kitchen and Terrace, which cantilevers out from the Palace Hotel as if it’s floating above the lake. Speaking of the lake, even getting to Bürgenstock is like something out of a James Bond film, quite fitting since the crew of Goldfinger spent a month here during filming. After crossing the lake by boat, you take a funicular up the face of the mountain and into the Bürgenstock Hotel, landing on the terrace with its arresting views.

Hotel Hofgarten is a warm, welcoming establishment housed in one of Lucerne’s oldest manor houses. From the outside, the restaurant looks like a casual pub, but the minute you enter, you sense the elegance housed inside. The space is light and airy. One white-walled dining room has high ceilings, ornate chandeliers, and is flooded with light. The other dining area feels like an upscale greenhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows and a gleaming open kitchen. The chef focuses on fresh ingredients sourced from Lucerne greenmarkets and local cheesemongers. Menu items are seasonal and include favorites such as roasted scallops, porcini ravioli, pumpkin soup, venison, braised veal, poached salmon, and fresh soups and salads. This is a wonderful restaurant if you are seeking lighter, more sophisticated fare in an airy environment while you’re in Lucerne.

Restaurant Nix’s is located directly on the lakefront in Lucerne in a historic building that dates back to the 16th century. Featuring Continental cuisine with an Austrian influence, Nix’s prides itself on fresh, local ingredients and seasonal menu. For the fall, for example, menu items include pumpkin beer soup with dumplings, oven braised rabbit stew, deer schnitzel with saffron noodles, and an autumnal salad with roasted wild mushrooms. The restaurant has a beautiful terrace that abuts Lake Lucerne - a beautiful spot for a bottle of wine while watching the sun set.

in the Swiss city of Lucerne is one of the biggest transportation museums that I have ever seen! There are several parts to the museum including air, rail and sea transportation. What I found the very interesting are the walls that are made up of road signs of all sizes. If you go, plan on spending at least 4-5 hours if you want to cover everything!

Max Chocolatier, a boutique chocolate shop in the heart of Lucerne, creates exquisite hand-made chocolate that is meant to be savored. The store is located on a high-end shopping street near the lake. While I normally don’t gravitate to “fancy” chocolate boutiques, something about this place beckoned. It is an intimate shop and the friendly staff is happy to explain the types of chocolate that best suit your preferences. Max Chocolatier uses local, 100% natural ingredients, so the chocolate products vary by season: there are spring, summer, fall and winter “collections” with different ingredients and recipes. In addition to basic chocolates (milk, dark, hazelnut, caramel, orange, etc.), there are also more exotic types with ingredients such as pumpkin, chili, and edelweiss providing some international flavor. Beautifully, lushly-packaged boxes of chocolate line the shelves. Clearly these sweet tidbits are lovingly crafted to please all your senses. While not inexpensive, each small bite delivers a rich, intense taste with a luxurious mouth-feel. Well worth it! www.maxchocolatier.com

Throughout Luzern, so many of the buildings have crazy, wild paintings all over them. Loving it! Wish more buildings in Brisbane were like this!

I was forewarned that this monument to the slain Swiss soldiers killed in France was deeply moving, and that Mark Twain had called it “the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world.” I still wasn’t prepared for how heartwrenching it was.It’s a very short walk from the center of town and is in a beautiful clearing, definitely worth a visit! Thanks to Davina for finding the exact Twain quote!

Switzerland’s mountains are the cornerstone of its beauty, and a great way to take in scenery is by train. The GoldenPass panoramic line allows passengers to gaze through its huge glass windows at the sprawling Alps. The route heads through Montreux, Zweisimmen, Interlaken, and Lucerne, and early reservations can be made for VIP seats alongside the driver. Farther up in the Alps is situated one of the highest train lines in the country. The Bernina Express tour spirals its way through the mountains, nose-dives through tunnels, and shoots along bridges, passing glaciers and quaint villages with the highlight being a UNESCO World Heritage site between Thusis and Tirano.

The 27-room Château Gütsch is a hotel out of a fairytale, a nineteenth-century fantasy on a mountaintop overlooking Lucerne (or Luzern). This was one of Switzerland‘s finest hotels in its day, and while the location with its views of the lake and mountains remained enviable through the 20th century, the hotel itself had begun to show some wear and tear. Fortunately new owners made a decision to close it, renovate it, and trust the new interior design to Martyn Lawrence Bullard, an acclaimed Los Angeles based designer who also appears occasionally on Bravo TV’s Million Dollar Decorators. Bullard’s redesign respected the history of the property, while giving it a playful new look. It’s rich but never stuffy. Since reopening in 2014, it seems poised to retake its place as one of Switzerland’s top hotels.

When work is complete on the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT), travelers will be able to travel through burrowed sheer mountain rock for 35 miles in a 50-minute trip from Zurich to Milan. Until then (scheduled completion is June 2016), sections of the world’s longest and deepest traffic tunnel is open for group tours organized by local visitor centers. You can see the digging machine that did the literally groundbreaking work, a 300-ton, 450-meter-long wonder. While the digging is done, the 57-kilometer tunnel won’t open till workers lay down all the train tracks and support structures. We took a short train ride to Bellinzona, where we boarded the train to Lucerne where we were joined by Tabea Mandour, who is a project manager with the Swiss Travel System. Tabea told us that this amazing project has been over 20 years in process, and will cut the time between Zurich and Ticino by 50 minutes (with another 10 minutes in savings once the Cenari Base Tunnel in Ticino is complete). This will bring the travel time for a train journey from Locarno to Zurich down to an hour and 40 minutes! Ready to embark on your own Swiss adventure? Check out the itineraries that have been created by the members of AFAR’s Travel Advisory Council and other specialists at AFAR Journeys.

The view from our gondola ride up to the top of the beautiful Mt Pilatus. Obviously, it was freezing and although the sun seems to be almost completely hidden by fog here, once up the mountain is was blindingly bright!

Lucerne is no stranger to mass tourism: The otherwise lovely medieval city swells each summer with list-checking visitors en route to central Switzerland’s famed Pilatus and Titlis mountains. Surprisingly, few of them make the 15-minute trek from the train station to this gorgeous 19th-century badi (open-air swimming area) on the Lucerne National Quay, overlooking the clear blue waters of what the locals call the Vierwaldstätter See (aka Lake Lucerne). The entire facility was meticulously restored in 2010 and remains a favorite of residents for its excellent views of brooding, multi-horned Mount Pilatus, Jean Nouvel’s lakeside KKL performance hall, and Santiago Calatrava’s Lucerne Station Hall—and all without the hassle of tourists.

Forty miles from Zurich in the heart of central Switzerland, the Axenstrasse is a historic motorway that’s so achingly scenic it might even cure your vertigo. It winds for seven miles around the base of the Uri Alps hugging the verdant ridge of turquoise Lake Uri (a branch of the four-fingered Vierwaldstätter See—Four Forested Cantons Lake—more familiar to most tourists as Lake Lucerne). It occasionally careens through century-old mountain tunnels and past painted bell towers and Roman-era viaducts scattered around the region’s Alpine villages, where the legendary folk hero William Tell is supposed to have come from. There are numerous picnic areas along the older sections of the Axenstrasse, and the entire stretch of lake is swimmable in the summer. Hikers can find a variety of trails along the road that can take them to higher altitudes, where they can spot ibex, chamois, alpine orchids, purple gentian, and acrobatic alpine choughs, riding the thermals of the warm foehn winds, said by locals to cause madness.