[raveesh_k]

All Season Wonderland - Switzerland

To me personally, Switzerland is one destination that I never get enough of, irrespective of having been there multiple time and in different seasons. Probable reasons of why I love this place so much could be, but not limited to the following,

• Firstly and most importantly, thanks to its marvellous rail and road infrastructure, that it brings me so close, with so much ease, to massive forces of nature.
• Makes me feel so small and insignificant in front of mother nature, and earns my increasing respect for our planet, each and every time I visit this place.
• Changing colours with changing seasons, good enough to put a smile on your face whenever you go - snow white in winters, green in spring and summers with endless miles of grasslands and fiery orange and its shades during autumn!

As you must have guessed reading the title of this travelogue - yes I travelled in Autumn this year, to experience different shades of orange, in a country where man and nature have learned to co-exist, and respect the existence of each other, for years now.

In addition to this travelogue, I also attempted capturing my exploration of Swiss in the fall season of 2021 in the form of a series on YouTube on my channel - BeermanTalkies. Please do consider subscribing to the channel, if you like the content. Will only motivate me to improve from here and to follow the same format of travelogue + video series to share experience and knowledge. The video also has english subtitles, because language that I have used is a mix of Hindi and English.

Swiss in the fall season:

Grindelwald - Mt. Eiger in the backdrop of a golden tree


A drone shot of Engelberg town


Staubbach falls in the backdrop of a golden tree


Limitless green grasslands on the way from Lucerne to Engelberg


Somewhere along a 10 km hike outside of Engelberg town


Some statistics with respect to the trip is as follows,

• Total Duration of the trip: 9 days in the mid to last week of Oct. Please note that this week is generally considered as off season and the tourists start to taper off starting the third week of October, which also marks the end of the autumn break for Europeans schools. Therefore, most of these winter sports destination usually start preparing for the upcoming winter months and some of their services may go down for maintenance if you are visiting this time. It has its advantages and disadvantages. Clear advantage being, less people in the form of tourists, less health risk aspect, and greatly, you have the whole of Swiss landscape in your picture, with just you being in the frame, and not others!
• Total number of KMs covered: ~1693 kms. I did Dusseldorf to Baden Baden which is 380 kms; Baden Baden To Rhine Falls: 180 kms; Rhine Falls to to Lucerne to Engelberg: 150 kms; Engelberg to Interlaken to Grindelwald: 105 kms; Grindelwald to Lauterbrunnen (For Wengen) and back: 17 kms * 2 = 34 kms; Grindelwald to Stechelberg (for Murren and Gimmelwald) and back: 22 kms * 2 = 44 kms; Grindelwald to Dusseldorf: 700 kms
• Total Fuel expenses: Given my car gives a mileage of 7.9l/100 litres, I must have consumed 7.9*16.9=133.5 litres. Now the cost of petrol of Super E10 in Germany has really hit the roof in the past 12 months from 1.2 euro per litre to 1.7 euro per litre, making my over all fuel cost to be ~227 euros
• Road Tax (Swiss Vignette, Autobahnvignette Schweiz 2021): 38.5 euros
• If you hire a car, then rental + insurance costs sit on top, as mentioned here (The French Riviera | Cote d'Azur | 9 days in the South of France).

My itinerary for this trip was as following,

• Day 0.5 (second half): Travel from Dusseldorf to Baden Baden
• Day 1: Explore the city of Baden Baden and take the Black Forest High Road to reach Klettgau, Germany for the night stay
• Day 2: Visit the Rhine Falls from Klettgau, enjoy the falls in the first half of the day, then head to Lucerne for evening snacks and then finally reach Engelberg late evening
• Day 3: Explore Engelberg, hike around, and burn the calories from the delicious mountain cheese that you may indulge in when here!
• Day 4: Conquer Mt. Titlis, and meet Raj and Simran on the peak!
• Day 5: Rest day - just be (!) and laze in Engelberg
• Day 6: Checkout of Engelberg and head to Grindelwald, stop at Interlaken during noon for a quick stroll in the Interlaken city and a snack, then resume towards Grindelwald and explore Grindelwald in the afternoon
• Day 7: Explore Wengen
• Day 8: Explore Murren, Gimmelwald
• Day 9: Rest day - just be (!) and laze in Grindelwald
• Day 10: Drive back to Dusseldorf from Grindelwald

[raveesh_k]

Travelling the Famous Black Forest Road

The distance between our home in Germany and the Jungfrau region is roughly around 700 kms but we find it always better to start our travel in the second half of the day and stay the night somewhere in-between. That ways we don't loose the whole of the next day in travelling to the destination. Likewise, as part of this holiday, we decided to a stop over in one of our favourite states of Germany - Baden Wutternberg and particularly so, in one of the most famous spa towns of Europe which is the crown of this state - Baden Baden.

Baden Baden is approx. 370 kms from our home and we reached there in the evening with 4 hours of travel time. Our plan was to explore the city of Baden Baden the next day and take the black forest high road, stop over at the highest point which is Mummelsee for some delicious Black Forest cake (...and yes it comes from the Black Forest region) and resume our journey to reach the border between Germany and Swiss, bringing us closer to the next destination in our itinerary.

I have shared my experience of exploring Baden Baden and driving on the black forest high road in the first episode of my video series on Exploring Switzerland in Fall 2021 on YouTube.

Highlights of this leg of our journey (which you will also see in the video),

• Baden Baden - A city that dates back to the Roman times and made popular for it's thermal springs dating back to that era. A beautiful German city that you should definitely consider if Spa is something that you like. There are two very popular Spas in this city, one is the old Roman style Friendrichsbad which is a textile free bath, and the other one is the Caracalla bath which is more of a family spa. Friedrichsbad was closed on that day but the Caracalla bath was open. The city of Baden Baden also has one of the prettiest city centres that you will find in any German city, so I would strongly recommend giving this place a visit if you are close by. Another reason to visit this city is the next point, which I believe is more exciting for many of us
• Black Forest High Road - also known as the Schwarzwaldhocstrasse which is a stretch of some 65 kms of road curling up from the city of Baden Baden up-till the highest point at Mummelsee and then down, on the route 500. This road also keeps finding its place in the top 10 themed roads of the world, every now and then. Whats really makes this road different is thats its almost equivalent to a circuit track made on the hills, quite broad, even on the bends, top notch tarmac (most of the times, however I experienced bad patches once in Nov 2020) which makes for a perfect condition for your adrenaline to rush! No wonder, this route is frequented by so many motor cyclists and sport cars on a good weather day.

https://youtu.be/-Rg0rlLcdAQ

Some of the pictures from our exploration,

[raveesh_k]

Visiting the biggest waterfall of Europe - Rhine falls

Since we explored the city of Baden Baden the previous day and travelled the black forest road, we booked ourself an AirBnb in a small German village Klettgau, close to the Swiss border with a specific reason - and that was to fit our itinerary for the next day to see the biggest waterfalls of Europe, the Rhine falls.

Our first base in this Swiss trip of ours was Engelberg where we stayed for 3 days, so from Klettgau we drove to the Rhine Falls, spent close to 3 hours there, then resumed our journey to Engelberg, only to stop in-between for evening snack in the city of Lucerne.

One strange experience that we had in this leg of our journey was when we left our AirBnB in Klettgau to go to the Rhine Falls, we had to obviously cross the Swiss border. Due to a reason unknown, when we arrived at the border, it was closed by the police. This was the route on my car GPS and now, when I tried alternative routes options on the GPS - Scenic, Fastest and Eco, all were taking me through this border crossing only. A situation we had not experienced till now. Anyhow so we parked the car on the side, and took out our mobile phone, and zoomed in into Google map, only to realise that the blocked route was the only option if we had to stick to the autobahn. There was no country side road nearby that could be chosen either. One option was to go back quite some distance to get onto the alternative autobahn, but we would have lost precious time doing that as we had a packed day ahead, so we zoomed in further on our mobile phone map and figured out an alternative route through farmland trails to cross the border. Never thought that we would have to do something like this in Germany/Switzerland!

I have also shared my experience of exploring Rhine Falls in the second episode of my video series on Exploring Switzerland in Fall 2021 on YouTube.

Highlights of this leg of our journey (which you will also see in the video),

• The biggest rainfall of Europe - The Rhine Falls: The sheer intensity and scale of this waterfall is something that I had not experienced before in Europe. And the most entertaining part is how close you can get to experiencing this amazing natural phenomenon. It's quite a spectacle and adventure, I must say.
• Lucerne - It's a beautiful city that sets you up in the mood for mountains before you start moving closer to the Alps. The best part about Lucerne is that it has the best of both aspects put together - a big city and a mountainous landscape, and this potentially is one difference between it and Zurich, where the latter is more of a big city only, lacking the mountain part. Lucerne is just 40 minutes drive from Engelberg and 1 hour away from Interlaken. For anyone who loves to drive, journey into Swiss beyond Lucerne, southwards, towards the alps is something to really look forward to, as the topography changes quite quickly and drastically after crossing Lucerne as you are surrounded by sky kissing peaks of the mountains, and wriggling roads around them to take to higher and higher!

https://youtu.be/iuE9HXG6ZJw

Some pictures from our exploration,

[raveesh_k]

Engelberg - why we love this place so much

After an exciting previous day exploring the famous Rhine falls, stopping for evening snack in the city of Lucerne, we arrived in Engelberg towards evening on the same day and Engelberg was to be our stay for the next 3 days. We were able to get ourselves a booking right in the centre of the town, also maybe because the peak autumn break season was over, and most of the tourists had returned just days before we arrived.

Since there was no private parking available in our AirBnb, we had to park our car in an open air car park, just adjacent to the Airbnb. The cost of parking was just 8 euros for 24 hours. It was a barrier free parking meaning, we had to just park the car, go to the parking ticketing machine pay for the number of hours we wanted to park our car - which was 3 days in our case, hence 24 euros. We then had to punch in our car license plate number and that was it. Since the parking was barrier free, we did not get any ticket from the ticketing terminal and we could get in and out of the parking as many number of times, within these three days.

I have also shared my experience of exploring Engelberg and Mt. Titlis in the third episode of my video series on Exploring Switzerland in Fall 2021 on YouTube.

Highlights of this leg of our journey (which you will also see in the video),

• The massive tunnel network of Swiss - linked to the astonishing rail and road infrastructure, there are 1000s of tunnels in Swiss, few of them being tens of kilometres long - and that is perhaps also one distinguishing aspect about Swiss from other mountainous terrains, either the roads here that climb up and down the mountains are mostly broad with even wide bends to ease out driving conditions, or where ever possible they have these tunnels to take you right through the mountains, thereby avoiding climbing up and down and thus, saving precious travel time!
• The beautiful town of Engelberg - This town has surprised us each and every time we have come here, with this time being no different. Since it was autumn, the peak of mountains that surround this town were not fully laden in snow, but we could see some of the peaks sprinkled with snow powder. One very good thing about Engelberg is that its mostly flat and a small town, so its quite easy to walk around and explore the town. Also a different perspective about Engelberg that we figured out this times, was the umpteen number of hikes that were available around the town, one of which, we also took this time. There is also a small cinema hall in Engelberg, so you can go check out a movie if you want, but do check the language in which the movie is being played. When we were there, it was the latest 007 'No time to die' that was playing, but in German! There is also a very decent Indian restaurant in Engelberg, right in the centre of the town.
• Mt. Titlis - to me this is one of my favourite mountain peaks which offers you a lot of activities to do on the top for example, you can do the Titlis cliff walk, then there is an ice cave, there are restaurants both at the peak and at the base cable station, which also serves popular Indian snacks, and you can also take the chair lift to go down one of the slopes from the peak, which is quite rare as mostly the chairlifts are only reserved for skiers. Also, to our pleasant surprise, the roundtrip fare to Mt Titlis, which is approx. 90 euros per person costed us 30% less with a guest card that we got from our AirBnb in Engelberg.

https://youtu.be/PWrxg2zJYpY

Some pictures from our exploration,

[raveesh_k]

Where man and nature comes so close together - Grindelwald

After having thoroughly enjoyed Engelberg, our next base for the upcoming 3 days was Grindelwald. We checked out of Engelberg early in the morning so that we could still have the the afternoon with us to explore Grindelwald. Distance between Engelberg and Grindelwald is approximately 100 kms but it takes just a little less than 2 hours to cover this, because both are towns are valleys at ~1000 m above sea level, so to go to other valley you have to come down from one and go up the other. On the way to Grindelwald from Engelberg, we stopped at Interlaken for a snack break, and also because it was a bright sunny day, we did not want to miss out on this chance. After having a stroll in the city centre and a quick snack, we headed to the Grindelwald which is only a 30 minutes drive from Interlaken.

I have also shared my experience of exploring Grindelwald in the Fourth episode of my video series on Exploring Switzerland in Fall 2021 YouTube.

Highlights of this leg of our journey (which you will also see in the video),

• Pristine turquoise water lakes - when travelling between Engelberg and Grindelwald you will find 3 turquoise coloured water lakes - Sarnersee, Lungernsee and Brienzersee, each one of which should definitely be a pit stop for you.
• The beautiful base station of Jungfrau region, Interlaken - Interlaken is the base city for the Jungfrau region, which is one of the most popular regions of Swiss, and a major tourist attraction. You can take a train to Interlaken from pretty much anywhere in Europe and from Interlaken you fill find transportation options to all popular mountain peaks, lakes, water falls and other tourist attractions of Jungfrau region. Therefore, Interlaken becomes quite busy during high season and likewise, to cater to the herd of transiting tourists, there are 1000s of cafes, restaurants, shops etc. that fit into the city centre of Interlaken. Just in case you did not know, there are close to 50 Indian restaurants alone in this town.
• Grindelwald - This is my favourite place in the whole of Swiss, only because of one reason - its location; it sits in vast expanses of the gentle slopes and shadows of the mountains that it's surrounded by and; its also very well connected to other popular Jungfrau destination either with rail, cable car network, or even by road, as you will see in the video. The expanse of this valley that you get to see with your eyes, with settlements far far away onto the slopes, like I said before, makes me feel so small as compared to the massive forces of nature. And this is one distinguishing factor about Swiss - no matter how difficult the terrain or topography be, there is world class infrastructure for you to reach there with ease, and there are all the facilities (and even more!) that you can think of, to make your holiday enjoyable and memorable.
• Spiderweb in the Grindelwald Glacier Canyon - yes, it freaked me out!

https://youtu.be/h3-sKzxIcZQ

Some pictures from our exploration,

[raveesh_k]

Hiking around the prettiest car free villages of Swiss - Wengen, Murren and Gimmelwald

Since our base was Grindelwald to explore the Jungfrau region, and given the quick access from here to other popular destination of this region, we had plans to explore some off the main course villages - Wengen on one day, and Murren and Gimmelwald on the other. All three were in one direction from Grindelwald, with base station of Wengen coming first, 20 minutes drive from Grindelwald and base station of Murren and Gimmelwald coming later, further 5 minutes drive from the base station of Wengen.

I have also shared my experience of exploring Wengen, Murren and Gimmelwald in the fifth episode of my video series on Exploring Switzerland in Fall 2021 YouTube.

Highlights of this leg of our stay (which you will also see in the video),

• Camping Jungfrau - It is one camping parking that is in my bucket list because of the sheer experience it offers as you can see in the video. Imagine waking up to the view of the mountains all around you, hiking to the waterfalls around the park, cooking your own meals in the community kitchen, making friends, and making stories of a lifetime!
• Wengen - we reached this car free village by taking a train from the Lauterbrunnen train station, which is 20 minutes drive from Grindelwald. This train has panoramic windows all around, giving you a spectacular view of the Lauterbrunnen valley, and it chugs along up the slope on the cog rails. If you have to go to Jungfrau peak, then also you continue in the same train and later change into another one. After reaching Wengen, we chose a 1 hour hike from the centre of Wengen that took us on a trail offering breathtaking view of valleys and the snow laden mountain peaks.
• Murren - To go to Murren, we had to go to the Stechelberg cable car station, which is a further 5 minute drive from the Lauterbrunnen train station. The cable car ride from the base station is quite steep and within minutes you reach the change over station at Gimmelwald. From here we took another cable car, that took us to Murren. Simply put - Murren is drop dead gorgeous, also because it's even higher up in altitude than Wengen, we felt as if we came right between the mountains and the views of the mountains around, is un-parallel, and cannot be described. This is a very popular ski destination and during winter months its thronged by skiers from all across the globe.
• Gimmelwald - initially we had planned to hike down from Murren to Gimmelwald which takes not more than 40 minutes, however given that it started to rain, we took the same cable car back and go down to the change over station. Gimmelwald is a farming village with not many accommodation options and therefore is even more pristine landscape wise. You can just spend hours and hours here gazing at the surroundings that this place has to offer.

https://youtu.be/s89fZMKEU0U

Some pictures from our exploration,

[raveesh_k]

Concluding Remarks

• Country code of Swiss is CH, which stands for Confœderatio Helvetica or Helvetic Confederation in English. By the way, the font, Helvetica comes from Swiss!
• English is prevalent in Swiss, however, depending on which side of Swiss you stay, there are four languages that you may have to use translate app on - French, if you are on the French Alps side; German, if you are close to the German side of Alps; likewise Austrian and of course Swiss!
• In my opinion the most popular regions in Swiss that you may chose to explore are: Obwalden (Engelberg, Titlis), Bernese Oberland (Jungrau, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald), Zermatt (Matterhorn), Sannen (Gstaad). But here I would also like to give a shout out to another popular peak of the Alps - Mont Blanc, which is part of the French Alps and is accessed from a pretty village called Charmonix in France.
• Euros are widely accepted in whole of Swiss, however expect your change back in Swiss Francs (CHF)! So try and use this change as much as possible before you leave Swiss, or on the brighter side, perhaps this unused change gives you a reason enough to travel back to Swiss later on, and why not!
• In case you are driving in Swiss, do watch for speed limits (in fact in the whole of Europe) as the fines are quite steep or can also get you in trouble with the police, spoiling your holiday.
• Again, in case you are driving, the rear passengers also have to wear seat belts. This is checked quite regularly in Swiss. An interesting fact is, that if the front passenger does not wear seat belt, then the driver of the car is liable to pay the fine, or get a point on his or her driving license, however if the rear passengers are not wearing the seat belt, then it's them who is liable to pay the fine as its not the drivers fault. Fine can be as much as 60 euros per passenger, so be careful if you are driving a loaded 7 seater or mini van!
• The concept of refuelling your car in Swiss is similar to what you have in France, with a slight difference - here also you pre-authorise your card first at the fuel tank terminal itself, but here you have to pre-authorise the card for the cost worth the fuel you want to fill, where in France, you just pre-authorise your card, fill as much as you want and your card gets debited automatically. Also in Swiss, if you want a receipt for the fuel filled, then after re-fuelling you go back to the fuel terminal, insert the same card again and the terminal will give you the option to print a receipt. Different worlds, different processes!
• Garbage disposal is taken very seriously in Swiss, and should be the same everywhere! so, do take special note of any instructions for garbage disposal by your hotel or Airbnb as not complying with them can also get you into trouble.
• Many of the villages and towns in Swiss are built on the slope of hills, so roads at many places are inclined, even the parking for your hotel, chalet or Airbnb may be on a slope, so please be careful while driving in or out. Likewise do study the location of your stay from the nearest bus/train stop if you are travelling with older people to make it an enjoyable holiday for them as well. There might be a bus stop just 100 meters away from your stay, but it could be down a steep slope or vice versa!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[yogesh.8984]

Made my day! You have a great sense of video blogging and loved watching all your videos here (subscribed to your YouTube channel as well).

Having lived in Switzerland for close to 4 years and been to the places you visited during your trip made me nostalgic. Of all the countries I visited / lived in, Switzerland is the closest to my heart (it was also the first foreign destination for me and any first always holds a special place for anyone). Engelberg happens to be my favorite place as well. Such a cute and nice small town and gateway to many beautiful places around. Though I never drove myself (and that is on my bucket list to do a road trip in Europe), the public transport in Switzerland is very reliable and you can use it to reach all destinations within the country comfortably.

You may have noticed Indian flag on one of the cars on the Gondola ride to Mt Titlis. Underlines how much Switzerland is a popular destination among Indian tourists. However its beauty can be truly experienced thru those country side walks, hikes, and not so travelled small villages all along.

I remember we doing a 3-hop journey through the country and it was a mesmerizing experience. 3-hop journey was something we devised as a way to explore the country in one off way. On one of the weekends, we started early from Lausanne, got onto platform number 3, took the 3rd train that came along, got down at the 3rd stop, explored the town and nearby places, and repeated the same over next two days. It was such a fun travelling without knowing what would be our next destination. Having a public transport pass which covered all means of public transportation including rail, road, boat, and all city/town transports made it easy as far as travelling was concerned.

Cheers to your trip and wish you many more such trips in future.

[rst89]

Nice pictures and well written!

Originally Posted by raveesh_k

Visiting the biggest waterfall of Europe - Rhine falls

One strange experience that we had in this leg of our journey was when we left our AirBnB in Klettgau to go to the Rhine Falls, we had to obviously cross the Swiss border. Due to a reason unknown, when we arrived at the border, it was closed by the police. This was the route on my car GPS and now, when I tried alternative routes options on the GPS - Scenic, Fastest and Eco, all were taking me through this border crossing only. A situation we had not experienced till now. Anyhow so we parked the car on the side, and took out our mobile phone, and zoomed in into Google map, only to realise that the blocked route was the only option if we had to stick to the autobahn. There was no country side road nearby that could be chosen either. One option was to go back quite some distance to get onto the alternative autobahn, but we would have lost precious time doing that as we had a packed day ahead, so we zoomed in further on our mobile phone map and figured out an alternative route through farmland trails to cross the border. Never thought that we would have to do something like this in Germany/Switzerland!

I used to travel on this Autobahn between Switzerland and Germany multiple times 5 years back and our cab driver most of the times took the country side road on weekends.
Reason: Custom check on Swiss side as people shop in Germany and return back to Switzerland. I have seen 2 to 5 km line just to cross this border.

BTW, is fuel cheaper in Switzerland compared to Germany?

Originally Posted by raveesh_k

Concluding Remarks

Euros are widely accepted in whole of Swiss, however expect your change back in Swiss Francs (CHF)! So try and use this change as much as possible before you leave Swiss, or on the brighter side, perhaps this unused change gives you a reason enough to travel back to Swiss later on, and why not!

There is some loss if you pay in Euros as per my experience, better stick with CHF.

[AltoLXI]

Amazing videos and pictures

Liked the appropriately paced narration without missing the necessary details. Goes a long way in helping others to plan the trips. Thanks a lot.

Watched all the videos on YouTube and will wait for more in days to come

[haisaikat]

Amazing videos and pictures of a beautiful land locked in the lap of nature. You have covered well with your writing, videos and the wonderful stills. Rated 5 stars.

I subscribed to your YT channel too. Curious, are the photos taken using some action cam since they are all 1:2 aspect and I see they are real wide angle, I am still learning to use a Insta360 OneX2 myself.

[raveesh_k]

Originally Posted by rst89

BTW, is fuel cheaper in Switzerland compared to Germany?

The fuel used to be cheaper in Germany till about an year back, but now it's almost at par, Swiss being tad costlier. They are so much neck and neck, that depending on what time of the day you buy the fuel, you may find it better priced in either country. Fuel prices here fluctuate through the day, with fuel costing cheaper during off peak hours like early morning, late evenings.

Originally Posted by haisaikat

Curious, are the photos taken using some action cam since they are all 1:2 aspect and I see they are real wide angle, I am still learning to use a Insta360 OneX2 myself.

You are right, they are taken using GoPro

[7heaven]

Very well written Raveesh, Enjoyed reading the same and was able to relive the precious one week trip we took as family in 2019 summer. Your observations and tips will help me plan a second trip in a much relaxed and extended period of time and will help explore the places mentioned in your write up. Thanks a ton for your efforts, pictures and videos.

Keep it coming... :-)