Alpine & Central Europe
Switzerland
The most expensive country in Europe and the one that most reliably justifies it.
- Capital
- City
- Destination
- Switzerland
Switzerland is four language regions, twenty-six cantons and a public transport system that works so well it changes how you travel: a postbus meets the train, the train meets the boat, and all three are punctual to the minute. The Alps take up 60% of the land and are threaded with cable cars and mountain huts. Nothing is cheap and almost nothing is broken.
Getting around
The rail network is the product. A Swiss Travel Pass covers trains, buses, boats and most mountain railways; without one, individual tickets are eye-watering. Timetables interlock, so a four-minute connection is a real connection.
When to come
High mountain trails open from late June and close with the first snow in October. September is the best month up high: stable weather, clear air, cows coming down. May and November are between seasons and many lifts simply stop.
Worth knowing
- Not in the EU; in Schengen. The franc is the currency and euros are accepted at a poor rate.
- Mountain weather turns fast and huts must be booked; the SAC app carries conditions.
- Tap water in villages and from most fountains is drinkable unless marked otherwise.
At the table
- Cheese in its own right — Gruyère, Appenzeller, raclette scraped off the wheel
- Rösti, and the Röstigraben that divides German from French Switzerland
- Chocolate, bought from a maker rather than an airport
Travel regions
3 editorial regions, each opening onto its cities.
Region
The Bernese Oberland
The classic Alps: Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau above green valleys full of cog railways.
Region
Valais, Ticino & the South
The Matterhorn, the highest vineyards in Europe, and an Italian-speaking canton over the pass.
Region
Graubünden & the East
Romansh country, the Rhaetian Railway's viaducts, and the highest mainline pass in the Alps.
Popular destinations
The destinations we have written most about, which is not the same as the ones most people go to — and is the only ranking we can honestly compute.
Lauterbrunnen
A valley with vertical walls and seventy-two waterfalls, and car-free villages on the shelves above it.
Bern
The federal capital: six kilometres of arcades, a river you swim down, and Einstein's flat above a café.
St. Moritz & the Engadin
A high valley of lakes at 1,800 metres, with sgraffito villages and 322 days of sun a year.
Zermatt
A car-free village under the most photographed mountain on earth, with skiing possible in July.
Lugano
Palm trees, a glacial lake and Italian spoken everywhere, twenty minutes from the Alps.
Experiences here
A sample of what is listed across Switzerland.
The North Face trail from Mürren
Two hours on a balcony path with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau directly across the valley the whole way.
Float the Aare
Walk upstream, get in, and let the river carry you back through the city — with a dry bag and a firm plan for getting out.
The Bernina line to Tirano
From glacier to palm trees in four hours, over the Landwasser viaduct and around the Brusio spiral — booked as a normal train, not a tour.
Journeys through Switzerland
The Journey Planner holds all 5 of these destinations and the real distances between them. It opens on 8 days, which is the shortest stay this atlas records for each of them added up — change the length, the month, the budget or the pace and build it again.
Stories set here
Fixed points in the year
The record
What we hold about Switzerland, where each figure came from, and when it was last checked. The score says what this country is for, not how good it is — it is useful once you are already interested and is not a reason to be.
- Capital
- Bern
- Currency
- CHF — Swiss franc
- Languages
- German, French, Italian, Romansh
- Population
- 8,574,832 (2019) — Natural Earth 1:50m admin 0 countries
- ISO codes
- CH · CHE
- Time zone
- CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
- Membership
- Schengen area
- Typical day
- €140–300 per person ≈ CHF130–280 indicative
- Best months
- June, July, August, December, January, February
- Quieter months
- May, September, October
- Facts checked
- not verified why this matters
Europe Experience Score
How this is calculated — derived from our own tagging, not from measurement. It says what a place is for, not how good it is. The tick on each bar is the median across the whole Atlas, so a bar short of it is a dimension this place is not for.