Austria and Switzerland

gill_81uk

After much deliberation we have decided to spend our honeymoon next May/June in Austria and Switzerland. The idea being to have a week in Austria followed by a week in Switzerland.

At the moment I'm really struggling with finding apartments. On the sites I've looked at you get very little information.

In Austria we are looking at the pertisau/Achensee area and are mainly just planning to do walks in the mountains and around the lake. We're not too bothered about travelling to other places.

In Switzerland we want to stay somewhere near Interlaken. After searching on here I have read that Wengen might be a better option. We would really like to visit Berne and Lucerne while here though as we have never been to Switzerland before so could do with staying somewhere with good transport links.

Any advice or experience of either of these locations would be much appreciated. Also if anyone can recommend anywhere to stay or websites to use I would be grateful. We are looking at self catering but would be prepared to consider a hotel if it comes in at around the same price. Would be happy to pay around £400 accomadation each week.

Flights won't be a problem, it looks like they'll be roughly £30 each inc taxes with easyjet. We're not sure how to go about getting from Austria to Switzerland. Has anyone had any experience of doing this either by train or with car hire.

Sorry for such a long post, but I've done hours of research online and don't seem to be getting any further forward!

Peter2006

Hi,

The village of Maurach (on the southern end of Achensee) is very nice, and possibly less popular/slightly cheaper than Peritsau. Really is a lovely area, with plenty of opportunities for walks in the mountains and round the lake. I've been to Austria loads of times (10+ I think, and I'm only 24! And Achensee is one of the nicest places in the country I've been)

Excellent transport links too (cable cars, chairlifts, trains, boats & buses) so you can do some good end-to-end walks without having to worry about how to get back. Also from Achensee you can easily get into Innsbruck, which is a very nice place to visit, and a useful place to go if you have any bad weather.

As for Switzerland the Interlaken area is again stunning. I've go for somehere in Grindlewald or Wengen, though if you want somewhere quieter (and slightly more remote, try Murren, which is a scenic village set high on the edge of a big cliff, gets very quiet in the evenings though). Grindlewald has possibly the slightly better transport links down to Interlaken, where you can get onto the main line trains, but Wengen is more scenic, in my opinion. Either one of the two though is a fantastic place to stay, with plenty of walking options around.

Berne is definitely reachable for a day trip by train from Interlaken, seem to remember it was about an hour by train. Very nice it is too. Not sure about Lucerne, but if you check the Swiss Rail website you'd be able to find out. Probably is do-able in a day, but may require an early morning!

As for getting from Austria to Switzerland, let the train take the strain. From memory your journey from Achensee would be bus down to Jenbach where you can catch a train to Innsbruck (and possibly even a direct train to Zurich). Then you'd probably have to change in Zurich, onto Berne and change to a train to Interlaken. Then from Interlaken you take the train up the valley to your resort. It may be possible to buy one ticket for all the Swiss leg, (check myswitzerland.com) as when we went to Murren, we flew to Zurich, and then had a Swiss Pass of somesort which covered all out train & mountain railway journeys: Airport>Zurich>Berne>Interlaken>Lauterbrunnen>Murren.

Anyway, hope all that rambling helps in someway. Any questions, fire away!

Voyager2002

Post #2 is spot on. I would just add:
For apartment rental, check out a Swiss firm called Interhome. They do have a UK office and website, although prices may be lower on their Swiss site. They also do cashback through Quidco. One of their properties is at the railway junction just up the mountain from Interlaken (on the way to Wengen and the other places mentioned). They have loads of properties in Luzern, too. Interlaken itself is rather a bore, but the villages nearby are set in wonderful countryside.

The journey between Luzern and Interlaken is long but beautiful, and certainly can be done as a day-trip.

The web site for train (and bus) information for Switzerland is called SBB, and most or all of it is available in English.