Day One:
We flew into Milan Malpensa International Airport (or something like that, airport code MSP), arriving around 8am. We immediately went to pickup our rental car, which we got through Sicily By Car. The rental counter is in a different place from the car pickup, but we finally found the counter after a good 45 minutes of running around everywhere. The car itself was pretty cheap, we paid roughly $120 for four full days, but they always get you with the INSURANCE which was an additional $90. ANYWAYS, we picked up our car (a tiny lil Fiat) and headed straight for Grindelwald, Switzerland. On our way we went over the most BEAUTIFUL mountain pass! There were plenty of pullouts so we pulled over a few times for some photo ops. I am so sorry that I didn't note the name of this mountain pass! I've tried figuring out online but haven't figured out which one it is...but here's some pictures from out stops over the pass!!
We used the app maps.me to navigate, and this is a helpful (and also sometimes infuriating) app. You download the regions you'll be traveling to ahead of time, then when you're there you can use the app like you would Google Maps. So it's a GPS you can use without wifi! You just have to download the individual maps ahead of time (super easy). The drawbacks are that it can't take traffic into account, so it only maps the quickest route by mileage, and it has really odd directions sometimes. BUT we would have been so lost without it. Anyway, getting off topic, we arrived in Grindelwald and spend the afternoon walking around the town and getting some food.
There were some places that only take cash (Swiss Francs) so we also withdrew some money from an ATM to use. From there we went to Interlaken, a relatively short drive, and checked into our hostel.
We stayed at the Tent Village in Interlaken which was actually our favorite hostel we stayed at the entire trip! Setup looks a little funny, picture big striped yellow tents and a coed bathroom and you got it, but it was really fun! There were lots of hammocks, a trampoline, a pool, and a hot tub. We also slept REALLY well. Partially because we have just spent a long day traveling, but also because with the tent setup we got more of the cool night air so we weren't boiling like we were in the other hostels!! Anyway, that night we walked into town and got some delicious gelato.
Day Two:
Day two we drove to Lauterbrunnen where we did the waterfalls hike/walk. This I had read a ton about online and it mentions there being 72 waterfalls, and while we were fairly underwhelmed by the amount of waterfalls (or lack thereof), it was still a beautiful walk and easy for people of all abilities. Most of it is paved, the hardest part for us was figuring out where to go. If you start at the train station, you just walk all the way through town on the main road, and don't stop! The first waterfall was the coolest, right outside town there's a waterfall you can hike up to and there's a little path behind the waterfall which is pretty cool.
There's also a great view of Lauterbrunnen from the waterfall!
After that little detour we just followed the main road down until we reached the hotel in Stechelberg, then took the bus back to Lauterbrunnen for a few dollars. The hike was really nice, classic Swiss scenery with cows and mountains and greenery and waterfalls! It was 9km or roughly 5.5 miles one way, and took us about 2.5 hours to complete.
Also note that if there is a sign that says "frei" next to parking, that means there's available parking spaces, not that parking is free....oops. In Lauterbrunnen we got lunch at a place that I believe was called "Flavours" and had REALLY good juice. I also got a street bratwurst, then we left for Zermatt!
So Zermatt is the mountain town right next to the Matterhorn, and you can only get there by train. The only cars in Zermatt are local busses and taxis/shuttle, so that's AWESOME. We just walked from the train station to our hostel, which was called the Matterhorn Hostel, and was an easy walk from the train station. Maybe a mile? My inner GPS is off so who knows, but it felt like a 15 minute walk or so. The hostel itself was fine, the room was pretty small and hot, but it was our cheapest option haha.
So after checking in to our hostel we walked into town and got sandwiches at a bakery, followed by chocolate fondue at a place above the bakery! We lucked out and found some relatively cheap fondue, pretty much everywhere in Switzerland it's really expensive. And that's pretty much it! I bought an adapter to charge my camera. Thrilling. I'll include some town views below!
Day Three:
We headed straight for the funicular (a weird cable car train thing that goes straight up the mountain haha), then transferred at the top to take a gondola up to do the five lakes walk, or 5-seenweg! This is an iconic Swiss hike that is suitable for people of all hiking abilities (there is some uphill and downhill, but you definitely don't need to be in stellar shape to get through it) that take you past five different lakes and with views of the Matterhorn throughout. There is an option to hike it from town, but we chose to take the funicular and gondola up, and the funicular on the way down. Hiking from town adds a pretty good chunk of elevation gain, so we decided against that. The hike was one of our trip highlights, super heavily trafficked, but beautiful nonetheless. There are two lakes you can swim in, but we just waded in the less populated one. Pretty chilly.
The first lake (and our personal favorite) feat. the Matterhorn in the back behind a cloud
The first of two lakes you can swim in (that's me in the black)
After the hike we went back into town and pretty much beelined for the train to get back to our car and back on the road. We went over another mountain pass, so more mountain pass photos below! I also had to get our trusty little Fiat in a photo ;)
This was a pretty long drive, roughly 3.5 hours I believe, to get from Tasch to our next hostel on Lake Como. We were getting pretty hungry, so we made a detour to Lugano to get some pizza! By this point we were back with people who spoke mostly Italian, and the guys who worked there spoke no English, so we just picked a random pizza and went with it. It came with four quadrants, a different topping in each quadrant. One quarter was olives, one artichokes, one prosciutto, and one mushrooms. So that was interesting haha, we just mixed and matched and it was pretty good!!! We stayed at the Lake Como Beach Hostel that night, and loved the setup of this hostel!! It was right on the lake, with a rooftop deck with with a hammock, a restaurant and bar downstairs, and free breakfast! Two big drawbacks. One: we had to sleep on top of our blankets in as little clothing as possible because it was SO hot (even with a fan and the window open, there's not much you can do about mid-90 degree weather!) and two: there are only like five free parking spaces. The other parking spaces in the lot you have to pay for, so we had an adventure of trying to find an atm then trying to break a bill down to get change. We got it figured out though!
Day Four:
We got up for breakfast, which included mostly things like toast and cereal, then hopped in our car and drove around the lake to Lenno. Note that parking around Lake Como is pretty awful. We ended up finding parking up a hill kind of in a neighborhood that was only one hour parking EXCEPT on Sundays, which is was. Thankfully. And it was free!! From there we walked down and over to Villa del Balbianello, another iconic Lake Como landmark. This picturesque villa has been used in multiple movies, notably in Star Wars as Naboo. We paid the student fee to enter the gardens (we chose not to do the tour), which was something like 8 Euros each, and WELL worth it. So stunning. I'm just going to put photos down below.
From there we walked to the Lenno ferry and paid 18.40 Euros for a roundtrip ticket to Bellagio. In Bellagio we got lunch at La Fontana Bellagio, a relatively affordable sit down restaurant. I got housemade gnocchi and my sister got the spaghetti, and both were great. We did have to pay a cover charge and had to pay for water, but the pasta was pretty cheap so I guess it evens out? After lunch we walked around Bellagio and got gelato, then took the ferry back to Lenno.
We hopped back in the car and drove to our final hostel, which was Malpensa Fiera Milano Hostel. We ended having a whole room to ourselves, which was nice, but it was another HOT night in toasty Italy. We were pretty close to the airport, which was super convenient.
Day Five:
We got up early, drove to the airport, and STRUGGLED to try figure out how to return our car. Fast forward an hour and we finally had it figured out. Then we went and barely made it through security in time for boarding, and got split up on our flights (reminder that we fly standby). So my sister got on a flight to New York, I got on a flight to Miami, and we met up at home after both making our layover flights haha.
That's a wrap! We had such a blast, and would HIGHLY recommend visiting northern Italy/Switzerland. Beautiful country, good food, safe, all good things.
Highlights:
- Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
- Grindelwald, Switzerland
- The gelato. Everywhere. So good.
- Villa del Balbianello, Italy
- 5-Seenweg/Five Lakes Walk, Switzerland
- Zermatt, Switzerland
- Stopping over the Swiss mountain passes
Would Change:
- Put more effort into finding a hostel with air conditioning
- Do Jungfrau
- Go to Varenna instead of Bellagio on Lake Como
- Bring a swimsuit!!!
Surprises:
- THE HEAT. We were not expecting it to be so hot and HUMID. Italy was mid-90's Fahrenheit (but feels like 100+ with humidity) and Switzerland was only a little cooler.
- The flowers!! I don't know if this is a summer thing for Switzerland, or because we were arriving just after a Swiss holiday, but there were flowers absolutely everywhere and it was beautiful. I mean every flower box was filled, every grave had flowers on it, flowers in the gardens, flowers everywhere and we LOVED that!
- We only saw a very small handful of other Americans! We were expecting to see more since it was peak travel season, but we saw very few American tourists.
Overall cost (not including airfare, since ours would be far below average as standby passengers) per person for us was roughly $500, or just under. This includes food, gas, car rental, hostels, transportation, and insurance. We didn't buy any souvenirs aside from my adapter, and we split most meals!
And I think that mostly sums it up! We had SO much fun and it was mostly stress-free aside from the navigating. Feels good to cross another beautiful place off the bucket list, next stop Banff, Canada!
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