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Team SeeThis.Place
Complete travel guide to Switzerland. Handpicked places including waterfalls, mountain roads, thermal springs, UNESCO sites, scenic drives and hidden gems. All with GPS coordinates.
43 degrees. Nothing but sky above you. The Alpine peaks of Valais rise vertically above steaming pools, and you sink in to your chin in the mineral-rich water. Leukerbad Therme is Europe's largest alpine thermal resort — and the water has healed bathers for over 500 years.
GPS: 46.378, 7.6255
Black slate, warm water, total silence. Peter Zumthor's thermal bath in the Swiss mountain village of Vals is built from 60,000 local slate slabs — each cut to millimetre precision. You glide from room to room, from hot to cold, from dark to light. Architecture you feel in your body.
GPS: 46.622, 9.1813
494 metres of mesh strung across nothing. Below you the Randa gorge drops 85 metres. Ahead: the Matterhorn, Weisshorn and the Bernese Alps in a single panorama. The Charles Kuonen Bridge in Valais is the world's longest alpine pedestrian suspension bridge — and it sways with every step.
GPS: 46.1011, 7.8019
170 metres of suspension bridge, 100 metres of thin air below, and a turquoise glacial lake glowing between grey rock walls. Triftbrücke in the Bernese Oberland recalls Nepalese rope bridges — just with the Alps as backdrop. The wind grabs the bridge, and your core muscles tighten by themselves.
GPS: 46.6944, 8.3574
Wind tears at your jacket. Clouds drift below. 107 metres of suspension bridge strung between two mountain peaks at 3,000 metres — the only one of its kind in the world. Peak Walk at Glacier 3000 in Vaud gives you a 360-degree panorama of the Swiss, French and Italian Alps in one sweep.
GPS: 46.3270, 7.2031
270 metres of Tibetan suspension bridge stretched across the Sementina valley. 130 metres below: chestnut forest, granite and a stream you can barely hear. Ponte Tibetano Carasc in Ticino is Italian-speaking Switzerland's most adrenaline-pumping hike — and it's free and always open.
GPS: 46.1948, 8.9746
The wooden floor creaks beneath your steps. Above you hang triangular paintings from the 1600s — dances of death, saints, Lucerne's fires. Kapellbrücke is Europe's oldest covered wooden bridge, built in 1333, crossing the Reuss River with its water tower standing guard in the middle. The Alps rise behind the gables.
GPS: 47.05167, 8.3075
Turquoise. So turquoise it looks fake. The Verzasca River at Lavertezzo is so transparent you can count stones on the bottom at four metres' depth. Ponte dei Salti — the double-arched Romanesque stone bridge — spans it all like a postcard from another world. People leap from the rocks and vanish into the crystal water.
GPS: 46.2601, 8.836
The switchbacks cling to the cliff face. The wheel turns and turns. And suddenly the Rhône Glacier opens before you like a frozen river from the sky. The Furka Pass in the Swiss Alps — 2,429 metres, 18 kilometres of pure drama. James Bond drove here in Goldfinger. You understand why.
GPS: 46.5833, 8.5
Rock walls rise on both sides like cathedral walls. At the summit, 2,224 metres up, a glacial lake glitters between snow-capped peaks. The Susten Pass in the Swiss Alps is less famous than Furka and Grimsel — which is exactly why you'll almost have it to yourself.
GPS: 46.7, 8.2333
297 metres of free fall. The water never hits the cliff — it dissolves into dust halfway down and drifts away like a white veil in the wind. Staubbachfall in the Lauterbrunnen Valley is Switzerland's highest free-falling waterfall, and Goethe wrote a poem about it in 1779. You can walk behind the falls and feel the spray on your skin.
GPS: 46.5898, 7.9054
You hear them before you see them. A deep rumble from inside the mountain. Then you step into the tunnel, and 20,000 litres of meltwater per second thunder past you in the dark. Trümmelbachfälle in Lauterbrunnen is ten glacier waterfalls INSIDE a mountain — Europe's only underground waterfall system accessible by lift.
GPS: 46.5691, 7.915
The ground shakes beneath your feet. 600 cubic metres of water per second plunge 23 metres over a 150-metre-wide rock edge — the spray hits your face from 50 metres away. The Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen is Europe's largest waterfall by volume, and the sound is so massive you feel it in your chest.
GPS: 47.6772, 8.6158
The water drops 500 metres in 14 stages — past moss-covered rocks, under stone bridges, through ancient forest. In the middle of it all stands a Grand Hotel from 1873 with white balconies overlooking Lake Brienz. The Giessbach Falls in the Bernese Oberland is a waterfall you walk through, not just look at.
GPS: 46.7336, 8.0238
The air shifts. The temperature drops. And then the cave interior opens into a sea of stalactites and stalagmites — thousands of years old, grown millimetre by millimetre from the darkness. The Höllgrotten near Baar are small, intimate stalactite caves with an intensity that surpasses many of Europe's larger caverns.
GPS: 47.1458, 8.5564
285 metres of vertical concrete. You stand at the base looking up — and your neck just keeps bending. La Grande Dixence in Valais is the world's highest gravity dam, built from 6 million cubic metres of concrete. At the top, Lac des Dix spreads before you like a turquoise Alpine sea.
GPS: 46.0812, 7.4028
You look down. 220 metres down. The Verzasca Valley opens beneath you like a green abyss. This is the dam from James Bond GoldenEye — 007's bungee jump in the opening scene. The Contra Dam in Ticino is an arch dam that makes your palms sweat just standing on the crest.
GPS: 46.1967, 8.8482
Turquoise. So turquoise your eyes can't quite process it. Lac de Moiry sits 2,249 metres up in the Valaisan Alps, framed by glaciers and snow-capped peaks. Barrage de Moiry is an arch dam you can walk across — and on the other side awaits a hike along some of the most surreal water in all of Switzerland.
GPS: 46.1368, 7.5705
Mont Blanc fills the entire horizon. Below you: a turquoise lake enclosed in a concrete arc at 1,930 metres in the Valaisan Alps. Barrage d'Emosson is an arch dam that combines raw engineering with one of Switzerland's most spectacular mountain panoramas — and the journey up is almost as wild as the view.
GPS: 46.0669, 6.9293
You walk down the forest trail. The trees open up. And there it is — a lake so turquoise it looks unreal. Caumasee near Flims in Graubünden is a mountain lake hidden in a forested crater, fed by underground springs that keep the water crystal clear and surprisingly warm in summer.
GPS: 46.8202, 9.2963
The water is so clear that the bottom vanishes into the depth without ever becoming invisible. Turquoise, ice-cold, and granite polished into shapes like sculptures. The Verzasca river pools at Lavertezzo in Ticino are Switzerland's most iconic swimming spot — and Ponte dei Salti, the double stone bridge from the 1700s, is the stage.
GPS: 46.2601, 8.836
You look down into the water and see the bottom 12 metres below — every leaf, every branch, every sunken trunk. Blausee in the Kander Valley is a small mountain lake with the clearest water you've ever seen. The colour is a deep, almost supernatural blue, and the forest around it blankets everything in green silence.
GPS: 46.5325, 7.6647
Cliff walls rise vertically on three sides. Waterfalls plunge from the edge. And in the centre lies Oeschinensee — an alpine lake that shifts from emerald to sapphire with the sky. Take the gondola up from Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland and walk 20 minutes down to one of Switzerland's most dramatic natural stages.
GPS: 46.4983, 7.7269
You pull felt slippers over your shoes. The door opens. And there it is — the most beautiful room in Switzerland. Golden shelves, ceiling frescoes, and 170,000 books that have stood here for up to 1,200 years. The Abbey Library of St. Gallen is one of the world's oldest libraries, founded in 612 AD and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
GPS: 47.4230, 9.3771
The clock strikes. The bears rotate. The rooster crows. And the crowd holds its breath before the Zytglogge — an astronomical clock from 1530 that still puts on a show every quarter-hour. Bern's Old Town sits on a peninsula in the emerald Aare river and is Switzerland's best-preserved medieval city. Einstein devised the theory of relativity here. UNESCO World Heritage.
GPS: 46.9480, 7.4474
3,454 metres. Europe's highest railway station. The train bores through the Eiger's north face and spits you out into a world of ice and ultramarine sky. The Aletsch Glacier stretches 23 km below you like a frozen motorway. Top of Europe is not just a marketing name — it's a statement of fact.
GPS: 46.5472, 7.9853
Vineyards cascading in terraces towards Lake Geneva. The Lavaux terraces have followed the slope for 900 years — Cistercian monks laid the first stones in the 12th century. Today, 830 hectares of vines span 30 villages, and every single grape gets sun from three sides: the sky, the lake and the warm walls.
GPS: 46.4929, 6.7272
Beneath your feet lie 240 million years. Monte San Giorgio rises between two arms of Lake Lugano like a green pyramidal mountain — but it's what the mountain hides inside that makes it unique. Over 10,000 fossils of prehistoric marine creatures have been excavated here. The world's most important window into the Triassic period.
GPS: 45.9112, 8.9512
The aroma hits you in the foyer. Lindt Home of Chocolate in Kilchberg is the world's largest chocolate museum — 1,500 m² of interactive exhibition, a 9-metre chocolate fountain and unlimited tasting. You follow the cocoa bean from the rainforest to the golden Lindor truffle, and along the way you get more free chocolate than you thought possible.
GPS: 47.3541, 8.5264
A visible line in the mountain where 250-million-year-old rock sits on top of 35-million-year-old rock. The Glarus Thrust in the Sardona area is geology's most spectacular example of tectonic plate collision — and you can see it with the naked eye. The entire mountainside is an open geology textbook.
GPS: 46.9304, 9.2435
An entire city built to make watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds sits 1,000 metres up in the Jura Mountains and was rebuilt after a fire in 1794 with one purpose: maximum daylight for the watchmaking workshops. The streets are laid in a strict grid so the sun hits every window. UNESCO called it a unique symbiosis between industry and urban planning.
GPS: 47.0993, 6.8257
The train swings out across a 65-metre viaduct and vanishes straight into the mountain. The Rhaetian Railway in Graubünden is 122 km of engineering artistry from 1904 — 196 bridges, 55 tunnels and the Bernina Pass at 2,253 metres, the highest alpine crossing without cog rails. All with panoramic windows and at normal speed.
GPS: 46.4946, 9.8426
Three medieval castles rise from the valley floor like teeth in a giant jaw. Bellinzona was the key to the Alps — whoever controlled this valley controlled the road between north and south. Today the castles still stand with walls connecting them in every direction, and from Castelgrande's ramparts you can see all the way to the Italian mountains.
GPS: 46.1913, 9.0183
A castle growing out of the lake. Château de Chillon sits on a rock in Lake Geneva with Alpine peaks as its backdrop — 25 buildings and three courtyards squeezed onto an island just 100 metres long. Byron wrote a poem about the prisoner in the dungeon. Switzerland's most visited historic monument, and there's a reason for that.
GPS: 46.4143, 6.9278
No paths beyond the marked ones. No litter. No flowers picked. The Swiss National Park has been protected since 1914 — the oldest in the Alps — and the rules are non-negotiable. In return, nature has had 110 years to do as it pleases. The result is 170 km² of untouched alpine wilderness with ibex, chamois and golden eagles.
GPS: 46.6667, 10.1667
4,478 metres of pure drama. The Matterhorn isn't just a mountain — it's THE mountain. The pyramid shape rising above Zermatt in Valais is so perfect it almost looks artificial. When Edward Whymper first climbed it in 1865, four of his seven team members died on the descent. The mountain has never been kind.
GPS: 45.9764, 7.6586
A natural amphitheatre carved from limestone — 1,400 metres wide, 160 metres of sheer vertical walls. You walk along the rim of Creux du Van in Neuchâtel and look down into a semicircle of grey rock where nothing holds on. Ibex roam freely along the edge, and the silence is so total you can hear the wind hitting the cliff face 160 metres below.
GPS: 46.9262, 6.7208
300 metres of walkway clinging to a cliff face at 2,166 metres. The viewing platform juts 45 metres into thin air above Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland. Below you: nothing. Ahead: Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau in full panorama. The grid floor forces you to look down — and your stomach has opinions.
GPS: 46.6603, 8.0530
23 kilometres of ice winding like a frozen motorway between 4,000-metre peaks. The Aletsch Glacier in Valais is the longest glacier in the Alps — a ribbon of ice holding 11 billion tonnes of frozen water. From Eggishorn you see the entire strip stretching to the horizon with dark moraine lines like road markings. UNESCO World Heritage, and you understand why immediately.
GPS: 46.4387, 8.0730
2,132 metres up on the summit of Mount Pilatus. Hotel Pilatus-Kulm near Luzern has served guests since 1890 — back then Queen Victoria came up by mule. Today the world's steepest cogwheel railway (48% gradient) takes you up in 30 minutes. In the morning the clouds lie below you and 73 Alpine peaks rise like islands.
GPS: 46.9789, 8.2548
Sleeping bags and reindeer hides in an igloo 2,727 metres up at Rotenboden. Igloo Village Zermatt in Valais has the Matterhorn directly outside the entrance, and at night there's nothing between you and the Milky Way except 30 centimetres of packed snow. Inside the igloo it stays around 0 degrees — outside it can drop to minus 25.
GPS: 45.9900, 7.7850
The rock walls squeeze down to just one metre apart, and 50 metres above your head there's only a sliver of sky left. Aareschlucht near Meiringen is 1,400 metres long and carved out by glacial meltwater 10,000 years ago. You walk on boardwalks bolted directly into the limestone.
GPS: 46.7201, 8.2046
3,135 metres up. 29 four-thousanders in your field of vision. The Gorner Glacier flows like a slow river of ice below you, and the Matterhorn stands sharp against the sky to the left. Gornergrat is Switzerland's most intense alpine panorama — and you can take the cog railway all the way up from Zermatt. The railway has run since 1898 and is the world's second-highest cog railway.
GPS: 45.9833, 7.7847
72 waterfalls plunge down vertical cliff walls in one of the deepest valleys in the Alps. Lauterbrunnen Valley is rarely more than one kilometre wide, but the walls rise 300-400 metres on both sides. Tolkien visited the valley in 1911 — and it became his model for Rivendell.
GPS: 46.5936, 7.9091
The Queen of Mountains. From Rigi Kulm's 1,797 metres you overlook 13 lakes and the Alps from Säntis to Jungfrau. Europe's first mountain railway ran here in 1871, and Mark Twain described the sunrise from Rigi as one of the great moments of his life — he devoted four pages to it in his travel book.
GPS: 47.0560, 8.4840
2,164 metres above sea level. The road snakes up through a moonscape of granite and glacial lakes, and at the pass the view opens to Grimselsee — a reservoir so turquoise it looks unreal. Grimselpass connects the Bernese Oberland with Valais and is one of Switzerland's most dramatic mountain roads.
GPS: 46.5620, 8.3390
2,265 metres up. The water is so still that the Schreckhorn and Wetterhorn mirror perfectly in the surface. Bachalpensee is an hour's hike from the First station above Grindelwald — and that view is among the most photographed in all of Switzerland. The lake lies 97 metres above the First station and is as nutrient-poor as only glacial lakes can be.
GPS: 46.6695, 8.0214
The evil road. For centuries Via Mala was the most feared passage in the Alps — an eight-kilometre gorge where the Hinterrhein has cut 300 metres down into limestone. 359 steps lead to the bottom, where the rock walls almost touch and the water is emerald green.
GPS: 46.6632, 9.4476
The Bernina Express rolls along the shore, and below you lies a lake so blue it looks like a drop of the Mediterranean in the middle of the Alps. Lago di Poschiavo in Val Poschiavo sits at 962 metres, stretches 2.5 kilometres and plunges up to 85 metres deep — and the villages of Le Prese and Miralago on the shore feel like northern Italy.
GPS: 46.2833, 10.0906
2,970 metres up. The restaurant slowly revolves, and the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau glide past the window like a living panorama. Piz Gloria on top of the Schilthorn was built for the James Bond film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' in 1969 — and it's still revolving.
GPS: 46.5572, 7.8353
A guesthouse clinging to a vertical cliff face, 1,454 metres up in the Alpstein massif. Berggasthaus Äscher has served hikers since 1884, and it's so impossibly placed that National Geographic named it one of the world's most beautiful destinations. Below the hut lies Wildkirchli — a cave where Stone Age settlements have been found.
GPS: 47.2848, 9.4151
Switzerland's Grand Canyon. 13 kilometres long, up to 400 metres deep, and the bottom filled with turquoise Rhine water snaking between white gravel banks. Ruinaulta was created by a massive rockslide 10,000 years ago — and today it's one of the wildest natural landscapes in Central Europe.
GPS: 46.8081, 9.3149
106 percent gradient. Europe's steepest funicular crawls up the rock face at Handegg in open wooden carriages — and at the top, Gelmersee awaits: a reservoir so turquoise it beats the Caribbean. The two-minute ride up is pure adrenaline with views straight down into the valley.
GPS: 46.6143, 8.3152
One kilometre into the mountain. Stalactites hang like organ pipes from the ceiling, underground lakes glitter in the spotlights, and legend says the Irish monk Beatus drove a dragon from this cave in the 6th century. St. Beatus Caves by Lake Thun are Switzerland's most accessible stalactite caves.
GPS: 46.6836, 7.7822
27 metres straight down. The Doubs river gathers in Lac des Brenets then plunges over a basalt ledge on the border between Switzerland and France. Saut du Doubs is hidden deep in a gorge — and you reach it either by boat across the lake or on foot through the forest. Both routes feel like a journey to the end of the world.
GPS: 47.0872, 6.7139
36.5 degrees warm. The spring rises deep inside a gorge so narrow you can touch both walls with outstretched arms. Taminaschlucht near Bad Ragaz has supplied hot water since the monks of Pfäfers discovered the spring in 1242 — and the old bathhouse Altes Bad Pfäfers still stands inside the gorge as a monument to early bathing culture.
GPS: 46.9740, 9.4876
140 metres up. 500 litres of water per second shot into the air at 200 km/h — then it all falls back down. Jet d'Eau in Geneva is the world's tallest water fountain and Switzerland's most recognisable landmark after the Matterhorn. You see it from across the city, but it's only up close that you feel the spray on your skin.
GPS: 46.2072, 6.1561
Red sandstone against blue sky. Basel Minster commands the Rhine from its hilltop, and its two asymmetric towers — Georgsturm and Martinsturm — have defined Basel's skyline for 800 years. The terrace behind the cathedral has the best view in the city: the Rhine, the Black Forest, and on clear days the Vosges in France.
GPS: 47.5567, 7.5922
Charlemagne founded it in 775. The Carolingian wall paintings are the best preserved in the entire world — 1,200-year-old images of Christ, apostles and saints painted directly onto plaster. The Convent of St. John in Müstair sits in the remotest corner of Switzerland, and that's precisely why it has survived.
GPS: 46.6300, 10.4485
Switzerland's most beautiful baroque town — and almost nobody knows. Solothurn lies on the Aare river with an old town that looks like a piece of northern Italy transported to Switzerland. St. Ursen Cathedral with its Italian staircase dominates the skyline, and the number 11 is everywhere: 11 churches, 11 chapels, 11 fountains, 11 towers.
GPS: 47.2083, 7.5372
No cars. No road through. Just narrow stone lanes climbing up the mountainside, vines hanging over doorways, and Lake Lugano glittering below. Gandria is Ticino's best-preserved fishing village — and the most Italian place in Switzerland that still flies a red cross on its flag.
GPS: 46.0057, 9.0028
The train goes in a circle. The Bernina Express turns 360 degrees on a stone viaduct that curls over its own route like a giant spiral — and you sit in the train watching your own tracks below you. The Brusio Spiral Viaduct is the world's only spiral viaduct in open terrain and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
GPS: 46.2539, 10.1278
65 metres above the valley. Six arches of limestone. And then the train drives straight into a mountain. The Landwasser Viaduct near Filisur is Switzerland's most iconic railway image — and no photograph prepares you for seeing the red train glide across the gorge in real life.
GPS: 46.6808, 9.6758
Painted facades in candy colours. Hand-lettered signs above the shops. And on Sundays, people still attend the Landsgemeinde — Europe's oldest direct democracy, where citizens vote by show of hands in the square. Appenzell is Switzerland as it looked 200 years ago — and as it still insists on looking.
GPS: 47.3461, 9.3419
Turquoise water, a small peninsula with a whitewashed church, and in the background snow-capped peaks reflected in Lake Brienz. Iseltwald is a fishing village of 400 inhabitants — and after the Korean drama 'Crash Landing on You', its little boat pier became one of Switzerland's most visited photo spots.
GPS: 46.7000, 7.9667
1,967 metres up. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau fill the entire horizon, and beneath your feet 650 alpine plants bloom in Europe's oldest alpine garden. Schynige Platte above Interlaken is where Switzerland's iconic triple mountain panorama hits you hardest.
GPS: 46.6561, 7.9069
A medieval town hanging over a gorge. Fribourg has Switzerland's best-preserved Gothic old town — with its 76-metre cathedral, 200 Gothic facades and suspension bridges over the Sarine river 50 metres below. The town is bilingual (French/German), and the cultural tension between the two worlds is felt everywhere.
GPS: 46.8000, 7.1500
2,328 metres. The highest drivable pass in the Eastern Alps, and the only one connecting the German-speaking with the Italian-speaking part of Graubünden. Bernina Pass runs past glaciers, alpine lakes and eternal snowfields — and on the other side, Val Poschiavo awaits with palm trees and Italian espresso.
GPS: 46.4108, 10.0275
The world's largest civilian nuclear bunker — room for 20,000 people inside a mountain beneath a motorway tunnel in Lucerne. The steel blast doors weigh 350 tonnes and can seal the tunnel in 20 minutes. You drive over it every day without knowing.
GPS: 47.0500, 8.2900
The Devil's Bridge across the Schöllenen Gorge — a 12-metre red devil painted on the cliff face, original bridge from 1230 and Napoleon's battlefield in 1799. Below the bridge the Reuss River rages 30 metres down in a gorge so narrow that sunlight only reaches the bottom at noon.
GPS: 46.6470, 8.5909
Europe's largest navigable underground lake — 300 metres long inside a cavern.
GPS: 46.2538, 7.4220
Primeval forest grown on two rockslides from 1714 and 1749 — Switzerland's last valley without a road, the track only came in 1946. In 1714 the Diablerets collapsed and buried the valley under 50 million cubic metres of rock. The lake they left behind is ice-cold and turquoise.
GPS: 46.2793, 7.2172
A 100-metre deep narrow gorge with wooden walkways bolted to the cliff face and a 100-metre waterfall.
GPS: 46.5160, 7.5809
15-metre earth pyramids with giant boulders as hats — they look like mushrooms from another world. The formation was created from Ice Age moraine material protected by hard granite, and the road through them was carved directly into the rock in 1946.
GPS: 46.1732, 7.4172
Europe's steepest funicular at 106% gradient — you lie almost on your back in the open car as it crawls 450 vertical metres in 12 minutes. The railway was built in 1926 for worker transport, and at the top turquoise Gelmersee waits at 1,850 metres.
GPS: 46.5979, 8.3248
The world's first revolving cable car spins 360 degrees on the way up to 3,238 metres — and the views across the Bernese Oberland are as wild as they sound. At the top: an ice grotto carved 20 metres into the glacier, a suspension bridge over the abyss and Europe's highest sushi restaurant. The Titlis glacier is the only one in Central Switzerland still accessible year-round.
GPS: 46.7725, 8.4372
An emerald-green lake tucked beneath the Alpstein massif at 1,143 metres — one of the most photographed lakes in all of Switzerland. Seealpsee sits in a basin surrounded by Säntis peaks with two guesthouses right on the shore serving rösti with local cheese. The hike from Wasserauen takes 45 minutes up a steep trail. In summer, the brave swim in the 15-degree water while cows graze at the water's edge.
GPS: 47.2689, 9.4000
The Engadin's wildest lake — 4.1 kilometres long, 71 metres deep and so clear you can see the bottom at 15 metres. Silsersee is the highest lake in Europe with a regular passenger boat (1,797 m above sea level) and the only Engadin lake without private motorised traffic. Friedrich Nietzsche spent six summers at Sils-Maria by the shore and wrote 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' here. The Maloja wind blows up the valley every afternoon, making it Europe's most reliable windsurfing spot above 1,500 metres.
GPS: 46.4167, 9.7308
A 110-metre cascade plunging down a vertical cliff face, landing in a cloud of spray behind the stone houses of Foroglio. Val Bavona is Ticino's most remote valley — none of the 12 villages have permanent electricity, and the road dead-ends at San Carlo. The Cascata di Foroglio is the valley's star attraction. Rustic grotti restaurants serve polenta and goat beneath chestnut trees.
GPS: 46.3734, 8.5484
An emerald-green lake hidden in a narrow valley between 2,000-metre cliffs — just 30 minutes from the Zurich region yet with a feeling of total seclusion. Klöntalersee is 3.3 kilometres long at 848 metres above sea level in canton Glarus. The water shifts from turquoise to deep emerald depending on the light. A narrow mountain road along the north shore leads to barbecue spots and swimming areas with views of the Glärnisch massif. In winter the lake freezes into a natural ice rink.
GPS: 47.0256, 8.9806
A trail carved into a 600-metre vertical cliff face — Gemmipass has terrified travellers for 700 years. The pass at 2,314 metres connects the thermal towns of Leukerbad in Valais with Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland. At the top, Daubensee awaits — a mountain lake frozen solid 8 months a year. Mark Twain crossed Gemmi in 1878 and described the trail as the most terrifying experience of his life.
GPS: 46.4000, 7.6139
Interlaken's home mountain viewing platform at 1,322 metres — and you see BOTH lakes at once. Thunersee and Brienzersee lie below you like two blue mirrors separated by the town, while Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau rise behind. The Harderbahn funicular built in 1908 takes 8 minutes up at 64% gradient. The restaurant at the top has a terrace jutting out over the edge. At sunset both lakes turn orange — Interlaken's best photo spot.
GPS: 46.6973, 7.8517
The world's first cable car with an open upper deck — you stand in the wind on the roof of the cabin as it climbs 1,900 metres to Stanserhorn. CabriO opened in 2012 with room for 60 passengers, 30 on the open top deck. The mountain is 1,898 metres high with 360-degree panorama over 10 Swiss lakes and mountain ranges from Säntis to Mont Blanc. The revolving restaurant at the top rotates 360 degrees in one hour. The journey starts with a nostalgic cog railway from 1893.
GPS: 46.9297, 8.3403
The world's steepest funicular — 110% gradient, meaning more vertical than sloped. Stoosbahn opened in December 2017 and cost 52 million CHF to build. The barrel-shaped cabins rotate automatically to keep passengers level as the railway climbs 744 vertical metres in 4 minutes. At the top, the car-free mountain village of Stoos at 1,305 metres with panoramic views over Lake Lucerne. The village has 150 permanent residents and has always been car-free.
GPS: 46.9854, 8.6709
A medieval hilltop town where the entire main street is car-free and the castle from the 1200s towers over green meadows with cows producing the world's most famous cheese. Gruyères has only 2,000 inhabitants but draws 1.6 million visitors a year. The castle holds 800 years of art, and next door is the HR Giger Museum — the Swiss artist behind the Alien creatures. La Maison du Gruyère at the foot of the hill shows cheese-making from milk to 12-month maturation.
GPS: 46.5833, 7.0833
Switzerland's best-preserved medieval town centre — every single facade on Rathausplatz is covered in 16th-century frescoes depicting biblical, mythological and everyday scenes. Stein am Rhein sits where Lake Constance becomes the Rhine, and the entire old town is only 200 metres long. St. George's Monastery from 1007 is now a museum with original paintings. Hohenklingen Castle above town has a restaurant with views over the Rhine valley.
GPS: 47.6667, 8.8500
The Italian painter Giovanni Segantini called Soglio 'the threshold of paradise' — and the village at 1,097 metres hasn't changed much since the 1890s. Stone houses cling to the slope in the Bregaglia valley with views of the Sciora group's granite spires. Soglio has 170 inhabitants, a Palazzo Salis from 1630 now a hotel with gardens of chestnuts and roses, and no modern buildings at all. Rilke and Giacometti both found inspiration here.
GPS: 46.3333, 9.5333
Car-free at 1,650 metres — Mürren hangs on the edge of an 800-metre cliff with Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau directly ahead. The village has 450 permanent residents and is only accessible by cable car from Stechelberg or cog railway from Lauterbrunnen. No traffic noise, no diesel, no stress — just alpine trails, belle époque hotels and the most iconic Jungfrau view in the Bernese Oberland. The cable car up to Schilthorn (Piz Gloria) starts here.
GPS: 46.5594, 7.8922
Switzerland's lowest point — 196 metres above sea level — and it feels like Italy. Ascona's piazza along Lake Maggiore is lined with pastel-yellow and terracotta houses, palm trees and gelaterias. The promenade stretches 1 kilometre with views to the Brissago Islands. The Monte Verità artist colony attracted anarchists, dadaists and dancers in the early 1900s — Herman Hesse, Paul Klee and Isadora Duncan were all regulars. Today Ascona is southern Switzerland's chic resort with a jazz festival in June.
GPS: 46.1550, 8.7680
The prettiest village in the Engadin — every house is decorated with sgraffito, the traditional scratched lime-plaster technique that gives facades patterns in white and grey-blue. Guarda sits at 1,653 metres above the Inn River and has 170 inhabitants. This is where Alois Carigiet set his picture book about Schellen-Ursli — Switzerland's most beloved children's book — and the streets still look like the 1945 illustrations. Houses from the 1500s-1700s with thick walls, small windows and Romansh inscriptions.
GPS: 46.7754, 10.1525
The pearl of the Alps — a car-free village at 1,800 metres surrounded by 13 peaks above 4,000 metres and Europe's largest ice grotto. Saas-Fee has been car-free since 1951, with all cars parked in the garage at the entrance. The Fee glacier literally hangs above the town. Metro Alpin — the world's highest underground funicular — reaches 3,500 metres for year-round skiing. The village has 1,700 residents, a medieval church with the Alps' largest ossuary, and a stillness hard to find anywhere else.
GPS: 46.1097, 7.9292
Switzerland's oldest cog railway with genuine steam locomotives from 1892, puffing and hissing 7.6 kilometres up to Brienzer Rothorn's summit at 2,350 metres. The ride takes 1 hour and climbs 1,678 vertical metres — the most dramatic train journey in the Bernese Oberland. From the top, turquoise Brienzersee lies directly below and the entire chain of Bernese Alps from Eiger to Finsteraarhorn stretches across the horizon. The steam engines are the originals — maintained and running for over 130 years.
GPS: 46.7869, 8.0469
The oldest Alpine pass with uninterrupted traffic for 2,000 years — Romans, pilgrims, Napoleon and the St. Bernard rescue dogs have all crossed these 2,469 metres. The hospice from 1050 is still run by Augustinian monks and is Europe's highest permanently inhabited settlement. This is where the monks bred the famous rescue dogs — Barry saved over 40 lives in 19th-century blizzards. The road is open June to October, and the lake at the top freezes 265 days a year.
GPS: 45.8689, 7.1706
Switzerland's warmest city with 2,300 hours of sunshine a year — palm trees, magnolias and camellias grow freely along Lake Maggiore. Piazza Grande is one of Europe's grandest town squares: 140 metres long, granite-paved and host to the international film festival each August with 8,000 seats under the open sky. Sanctuario della Madonna del Sasso from 1487 towers above. The old town has arcades from the 1200s, and the lido beach has an Olympic-sized pool.
GPS: 46.1667, 8.8000
A hidden alpine lake at 1,381 metres reached only on foot — a 45-minute easy hike from the village of Lauenen in the Bernese Oberland. The lake is surrounded by spruce and larch trees, and the still water mirrors Geltenhorn and the Dungel massif like a mountain mirror. Lauenensee is one of the few Swiss lakes with no restaurants, no stalls or infrastructure at the shore — just a barbecue area and total silence. Behind the lake, Stübleni waterfall drops 100 metres over moss-covered rocks.
GPS: 46.3950, 7.3322
A narrow-gauge train crawling 52 kilometres through 'the hundred valleys' from Locarno in Switzerland to Domodossola in Italy — across 83 bridges and through deep chestnut forests. The Centovalli railway is one of the Alps' most underrated train journeys. The ride takes 2 hours and passes villages clinging to cliff sides, waterfalls plunging beneath the tracks and viaducts with views 100 metres down into the river gorge. Runs year-round at just 34 CHF one way.
GPS: 46.1667, 8.6167
Lugano's home mountain at 925 metres — Switzerland's sunniest spot with an average of 2,350 hours of sunshine per year. The funicular from the Cassarate quarter climbs up in 10 minutes, and at the top a 360-degree panorama awaits over Lake Lugano, Monte San Salvatore and the Alps all the way to Monte Rosa. The village of Brè at the summit has streets decorated with sculptures by artist Ben Vautier. Restaurant Vetta has a terrace where all of southern Switzerland lies at your feet. The sunset here is legendary.
GPS: 46.0086, 8.9865
From 2,042 metres you see the entire Lake Geneva stretching like a blue ribbon below — from Geneva in the west to Villeneuve in the east — with the French Alps and Mont Blanc as a backdrop. The cog railway from Montreux climbs 55 minutes through vineyards, pastures and cliffs. At the top, a colony of alpine marmots in a natural habitat. Botanical garden La Rambertia has 1,000 alpine plants from around the world. Freddie Mercury, who lived in Montreux, said this view was his inspiration.
GPS: 46.4320, 6.9761
Five alpine lakes on one hike — each with its own colour, from milky-white glacier lake to deep turquoise. The Pizol 5-Seen-Wanderung is an 11-kilometre high-alpine route at 2,200-2,600 metres passing Wangsersee, Wildsee, Schottensee, Schwarzsee and Baschalvasee. The hike takes 4-5 hours and demands good fitness — 700 metres of elevation on rocky trails. The cable car from Bad Ragaz saves you the first 1,000 metres. The season is short: July to October, and turquoise Wildsee is the undisputed highlight.
GPS: 46.9592, 9.3867
The world's slowest express train. 291 kilometres from Zermatt to St. Moritz in 8 hours — through 91 tunnels, over 291 bridges and up to 2,033 metres at the Oberalp Pass. The Glacier Express cuts across the Swiss Alps, serving lunch with views of glaciers, deep valleys and snow-capped peaks. The Landwasser Viaduct near Filisur is the highlight: 65 metres high, six arches, straight into a tunnel carved in the mountainside.
GPS: 46.5950, 8.6700
Europe's most important mountain pass for 800 years. The Gotthard Pass at 2,106 metres connects German-speaking Switzerland to Italian-speaking Ticino — and has done so since the Middle Ages. The cobblestone section with its famous hairpin bends over the Tremola Valley is an engineering masterpiece from 1830. The hospice at the top has stood here since the 1200s. The Romans went around it, but everyone after them went over.
GPS: 46.5555, 8.5568
Between two lakes, beneath three mountains. Interlaken sits on a narrow strip of land between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz — with Eiger (3,967 m), Mönch (4,107 m) and Jungfrau (4,158 m) as its backdrop. The town is the main base for the Bernese Oberland: Jungfraujoch, Schilthorn, Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen all start from here. The Höheweg promenade with its view of the Jungfrau is the town's landmark.
GPS: 46.6833, 7.8500
Switzerland's most beautiful entrance. Lake Thun stretches 18 kilometres from the town of Thun to Interlaken, framed by 2,000-metre peaks and medieval castles. Spiez with its castle on a peninsula, Oberhofen with its lakeside castle gardens, and tiny Iseltwald on a headland. The boat trip from Thun to Interlaken takes two hours and costs under 40 CHF. The water is turquoise and reaches 18-20 degrees in summer.
GPS: 46.6990, 7.7020
The Swiss Riviera. Montreux sits on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva with palm trees, bougainvillea and a microclimate that allows grapes and citrus. The Jazz Festival in July draws 250,000 visitors. Freddie Mercury spent his final years here — his statue stands by the harbour. Château de Chillon is 3 kilometres south of town. The Lavaux vineyards begin just north of the centre.
GPS: 46.4312, 6.9107
Timber frames, city walls and a lake like a mirror. Lucerne's old town sits where the Reuss river flows out of Lake Lucerne — with the Kapellbrücke (Europe's oldest wooden bridge, 1333), the Spreuerbrücke, the dying lion fountain and the Musegg Wall intact from the 1400s. Pilatus (2,128 m) and Rigi (1,797 m) rise on either side of the lake. The centre is car-free and walkable in an hour.
GPS: 47.0505, 8.3064
Switzerland's largest city — and its least Swiss. Zürich is banks and concrete on the outside, but the old town along the Limmat is medieval lanes, narrow alleys and the Grossmünster's twin towers from the 1100s. The Fraumünster has Chagall stained-glass windows from 1970. Bahnhofstrasse is Europe's most expensive shopping street. Lake Zürich starts at the city edge, and in summer people swim in the Limmat in the middle of town.
GPS: 47.3667, 8.5500
Top Gear called it the world's best driving road. Flüelapass climbs to 2,383 metres between Davos and Susch in the Engadin — hairpin bends stacked on top of each other, with snow markers three metres tall and a mountain lake at the top. Open June to October. The southern descent towards the Engadin Valley is the spectacular part: 15 kilometres of bends through a gorge of larch trees and granite.
GPS: 46.7478, 9.9478