The Ultimate Guide to a Switzerland Girl’s Trip

Posted bySavanna D LeighPosted inTravelTags:, , , , , , , , , ,

At the end of last year, I was invited to go on a trip to Switzerland, with two girlfriends, for my friend’s 30th birthday. It was an easy yes as I had never been to Switzerland and the only part of Europe I had been to was Iceland, a few years prior.

We ended up going to Switzerland in March and it was magical. I could go back every year it was such an amazing place. The people, the food, the drinks and of course the amazing views…everything about Switzerland is like a fairytale.

If anyone is thinking about going to Switzerland, I wanted to make a quick guide on how we were able to get as many stops in as possible and travel from one end of the country to the other in a span of about a week and a half.

Switzerland is huge and when you go to plan what areas you want to hit, it can be very difficult to decide where you’ll go and what you’ll skip. That’s why i’m here to help!

The Details:

It was me and my two girlfriends on this trip and I was flying from Los Angeles, CA and they were both flying from Nashville, TN. We went from March 2nd to March 12th. Overall, it was a great time of year, especially if you love skiing. I didn’t think it was too cold and we were still able to do all of the things we wanted to.

We were going to fly into Geneva, take a train to Zermatt, the famous Glacier Express to St. Moritz and then end our trip in Zurich to fly back home.

The Flight:

I ended up wanting to be boujee and I booked a first class, Delta One, ticket to Geneva Switzerland. This was my first time flying first class but since it was going to be such a long flight, and I would be flying from LAX to Paris and then Paris to Geneva, I decided it was worth it. I will warn you, once you fly first class, it is very hard to go back to economy.

If you’re curious to learn more about flying first class, I’ll do a separate post on that to help weigh the pros and cons. Overall, it was a great experience. I was greeted with a glass of champagne, a cute amenity kit, headphones and an amazing menu. You probably don’t care about the menu, but the mushroom ravioli in tomato and caper sauce was the bomb. As was the cheese plate and trio of miniature deserts. Throughout the long flight, I also was served breakfast and then on the flight from Paris to Geneva I was served lunch/early dinner.

Am I the only one that finds airplane food to be very good? I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad meal…well maybe one or two.

Welcome to Geneva!

Switzerland in general has a great transportation system and there are buses, trains and more ways to get from one point to the next. It probably would have been cheaper to take a bus but I ended up getting a cab to the hotel after flying for so long and it wasn’t too expensive.

We stayed at the Ruby Claire Hotel and I highly recommend. It was a very cute hotel, located in the center of Geneva, and had amazing pain au chocolats you could purchase in the morning.

Here are a few other hotels that are great options for Geneva and ones we considered:

Our first night we went to Les Armures and had a traditional Swiss dinner that also included the biggest fondue pot of cheese I have ever seen. We ended up not being able to finish it because it was so much cheese. I recommend ordering small sizes because it goes a long way.

Our first full day was jammed back from the get go. We started at 8:30am on a Gruyeres Tour of Chocolate and Cheese. I highly recommend booking this tour through here and if you get Bobis as your tour guide you are extremely lucky. He made the experience so amazing.

This tour was extremely well done. You’ll be making multiple stops and trying many types of cheeses and chocolates. We first made a quick stop in Epesses, Laavaux and had some cheese and wine.

We then went to chocolate factory, Maison Cailler, and were able to tour the facilities and try more chocolate than I could even imagine.

Following the chocolate factory, we went to the Gruyeres Castle as well as the La Maison du Gruyere to see how the cheese making process is conducted.

On the way back to Geneva, we stopped in Lausanne, drove by the Olympic museum (where I do not remember because at this point I had passed out on the bus) and then we drove by The United Nations Offices at Geneva and finally returned back to our hotel. This is an all day tour so don’t expect to do multiple events in the day.

Following our tour we were supposed to eat at Auberge De Saviese but we were exhausted and ended up just grabbing a quick bite and having a drink at Black Sheep Geneva.

Overall, Geneva was probably my least favorite stop on our trip. For being a Saturday night the streets were dead and the vibes didn’t feel high. Maybe it’s because I was still so exhausted from the trip over but not my favorite place which may be fighting words for some.

If you are going to Geneva, here are a few other restaurants that were highly recommended and all price points:

Here are a few must sees in Geneva:

  • Lake Geneva
  • Palais des Nations
  • Geneva Old Town
  • Jet d’Eau
  • Walk around and take in some of the beautiful architectural buildings

Now off to our next destination! The trains systems were extremely easy to use and if you’re going to be using the system, buy a Swiss Travel Pass.

Zermatt – Where’s the Matterhorn?

The train from Geneva to Zermatt was about 3 and a half hours but it went relatively quickly. Minus the fact that as I was putting my luggage up, it fell and I broke three of my nails on one hand. You’ll be seeing that there was a theme of me injuring myself on this trip.

Zermatt was by far my favorite place of this whole trip. Next time, I would just stay here, it was that magical. From the moment you get off the train, you are transported in what you were probably imagining a Switzerland village would look like. Beautiful views, mountains, snow, cobble stone streets and just an adorable setting all together. You also can’t miss the Matterhorn, it’s ginormous and center stage.

We stayed at Hotel Monte Rosa and I highly recommend. They were amazing and I don’t think their customer service can be topped. I personally loved their turn down service, which included having a warm heating pads at the end of the beds. They also had an amazing complimentary breakfast every morning.

Here were the hotels on our list:

Our first night there we had drinks at Elsie’s Wine and Champagne Bar which was top notch and then we had a fancy dinner at Madre Nostra. This was probably one of the best meals we had this whole trip, and one of the most expensive, but it was worth it.

Leaving Madre Nostra, I had the brilliant idea to walk across the end of a ski path to get to the walkway down the mountain. If I was wearing snow boots I’d be fine but I live in Los Angeles and rarely see snow and at the time was wearing cute boots with absolutely zero traction. I ended up falling straight on my butt and I don’t think I’ve ever been in so much pain. It was so bad that I ended up having to get an x-ray when I returned home. After a few drinks and relaxing my butt I was feeling better and praying that there were no more accidents this trip.

The next day was more relaxing and included sight seeing and ending the night with pizza at Grampi’s.

The next and last day in Zermatt we had to make the trek to, Michelin restaurant, Chez Vrony. When we originally booked this reservation, we didn’t realize that it is legitimately on a ski path and to get there you have to take a lift up the mountain and then walk or ski to the restaurant. Now, because at this point I’m a walking caution sigh, there was supposed to be a path to the restaurant and we thought we were on it…spoiler we were not. We were walking directly on the ski path trying to avoid the active skiers. We made it though without any one getting hurt! If you’re thinking about my butt, which you probably aren’t, but yes it was still hurting as I’m weaving in and out of skiers on foot.

Chez Vrony was great and had a top notch Aperol Spritz and it was worth the well hike to get there. After Chez Vrony on our walk back to town, we stopped by Paradise to have well another Aperol Spritz and this by far was the best one.

After Chez Vrony, we explored the town a little more and worked on our apres ski..minus the skiing. I’ve made a list below of the best bars in Zermatt that I would recommend. I also did the same for the restaurants.

The one thing that I thought was really ironic about Zermatt was that it had the largest amount of American tourists out of all our stops.

Here are a few of the top restaurants in Zermatt

Best Bars in Zermatt:

Now on to our next stop!

Brief Pause for the 8 hour Glacier Express

Before we get to St. Moritz, we need to talk about the famous Glacier Express. The Glacier Express uses the motto that they give the “window to the Alps” and it truly was. The train ride from Zermatt to St. Moritz was a total of 8 hours and the train has panoramic windows so it is hard to miss any of the views you pass during this time. Even though I wish it was a little shorter than 8 hours, it was still a once in a lifetime experience and if you get the chance, I would take the glacier express at least once through the Swiss countryside.

Now to St. Moritz…the Richie Rich of the Swiss

After having an amazing time in Zermatt, St. Moritz was a little slow and quiet for us. St. Moritz is where the rich go skiing and vacationing and you can tell. I had the most expensive Aperol Spritz in my life here and it wasn’t anything special.

You can tell immediately that St. Moritz isn’t cheap with luxury stores lining the streets leading up to our hotel and the city. We also got to visit a Louis Vuitton pop up store that was an adorable yurt like structure in the middle of the city.

We stayed at Hotel Steffani and it was cute and had a good complimentary breakfast.

Here are a few other hotels that were on our list:

We did manage to find a really cute dive bar where there seemed to be live music and dancing every night.

On our last night we had high tea at the Carlton and dinner at the cutest restaurant called Pavarotti”s Wine Bar.

If you’re not a night owl, this may not be a good night life city for you as we found that things didn’t get crazy to well into the middle of the night.

Best Restaurants/Bars in St. Moritz:

Now to our last and final stop before heading back to the states.

Zurich – last stop on the Swiss trip!

We took the train from St. Moritz to Zurich and it was about 6 hours to the station and then we took a cab to our hotel.

We stayed at Hotel Wellenberg and it was very nice but I will say that we choose the option that said it had two bedrooms. That’s not really the case, it has one bedroom and then a couch that turns into a bed.

We were right in the middle of the city and it was very walkable and adorable. We had drinks at a cocktail bar called the Old Crow and then we had dinner at Veltlinerkeller and it was a very unique experience. They have a relatively small menu and they cook it table side. It felt like eating at home because they would give you seconds of your dish. It also helped that meal was delicious.

Our next day in Zurich was all about relaxation and we were going to a traditional Roman Irish bath at Hurlimannbad & Spa. You can’t book a reservation in advanced so I recommend going early because it gets busy It also didn’t help that it was a cold and rainy day.

After we went to the spa we had dinner, and our last fondue, at Swiss Churchi Restaurant. Followed by a trip to the WOW Museum and checking out a few of the local bars.

Zurich was a city that I would love to see again as I think there was lot that we weren’t able to see.

Overall, Switzerland is an amazing and magical place. I want to go back when it’s warm to see a different environment.

If you’d like to get my official itinerary, feel free to reach out directly! If you’d like to see more pictures from the trip, check out my Instagram at @SavannaSipping Champagne.

See you on my next adventure!

Savanna

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