Alpine Highs in Switzerland

The country’s largest city flaunts its assets like a fine Swiss watch: its old town is one of the most romantic in the land, a jewelry box of baroque churches and medieval townhouses, streets weaving between quays and cobbled squares. Time a visit with one of the city’s open-air festivals, parades or open-air concerts, lose yourself in the museums, or do as the Zurichers do: take a cooling dip on a lakeside beach, admiring the Alps as they roll away in a distant, pale-blue haze. 

It is no coincidence Interlaken lies at Switzerland’s core: this is its very essence, a thrilling scene of fairytale beauty, squeezed between the glacial lakes of Thun and Briez, dwarfed by iconic white mountains. Days here revolve around the great, wildflower-scented outdoors: strolling traffic-free mountain villages, hearing the roar of Lauterbrunnen’s waterfalls or taking a gondola into the snowy heights of the Alps, where the mountains, meadows and shocking-blue lakes open out like a giant’s pop-up book.

Lausanne is a quiet symphony of a city: it begins in the lofty old town, a cobbled crescendo of gothic spires and belfries, weaving down steep slopes to the Olympic Museum and Sculpture Garden, before a finale at the beautiful waterfront, where grand, storied hotels dip their preened toes into Lake Geneva’s northern shores. Nearby is Montreux, home to the legendary jazz festival, and the Château de Chillon at Veytaux: a stirring medieval castle right on the water, immortalized by Lord Byron’s The Prisoner of Chillon.