Europe
Switzerland is a country in Central Europe. Bern is its de facto capital (Wikidata records no de jure capital), and its official languages are German, French, Italian and Romansh.
Destinations covered
12
Published guides
29
Region
Europe
Explore Switzerland
Discover cities, regions and experiences worth building a trip around, then go deeper with practical guides and local context.
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City
Basel is a city on the Rhine in the corner where Switzerland meets Germany and France, and the seat of the canton of Basel-Stadt. XTOUR maps the Minster, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Town Hall, the Museum Tinguely and the Spalentor in the city, and treats the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen and Augusta Raurica in Augst as trips from Basel.
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11 destinations
Bern is the federal city of Switzerland on a loop of the Aare, which the city's own site calls the political centre of the country; its old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1983. XTOUR maps the Zytglogge, the Minster, the Federal Palace, the Einstein House, the Bern History Museum and the Zentrum Paul Klee in the city, and treats Thun Castle as a trip from Bern.
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Geneva is the capital of the canton of Geneva, which the City of Geneva's own pages describe as the European seat of the United Nations and the seat of the International Red Cross. XTOUR maps St. Pierre Cathedral, the Palais des Nations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, the Museum of Art and History, the Reformation Wall and the Botanical Garden in the city.
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Interlaken is a town and municipality in the canton of Bern on the alluvial plain between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, which its tourism board presents as a starting point for excursions into the Jungfrau Region and the Bernese Oberland. XTOUR uses Interlaken as a travel base only: the Jungfraujoch, Harder Kulm, the Lauterbrunnen Valley and its falls, the two lakes and the other places reached from it are mapped at their own locations, none of them in Interlaken.
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Lausanne is the capital of the canton of Vaud on the northern shore of Lake Geneva, which its tourism board describes as built on three hills and as the home of the International Olympic Committee's headquarters. XTOUR maps Lausanne Cathedral, the Olympic Museum, the Collection de l'Art Brut and the MCBA fine-arts museum in the city.
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Lucerne (Luzern) is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and, as the city's own Welcome Desk page puts it, the largest municipality in that canton. XTOUR maps the Chapel Bridge, the Lion Monument, the Musegg Wall, the Jesuit Church, the Hofkirche, the Bourbaki Panorama and the Swiss Museum of Transport in the city, and lists Pilatus, the Rigi, the Titlis and Lake Lucerne, which lie outside it, only as places based from Lucerne.
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Lugano is a city on Lake Lugano in the canton of Ticino; its municipality, enlarged by mergers between 1972 and 2013, is divided into 21 quarters, among them Brè-Aldesago, Pazzallo and Gandria.
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Montreux is a municipality in the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut district of the canton of Vaud, which its own site describes as made up of about twenty villages, among them Clarens, Territet, Glion, Caux and the Vieille Ville. XTOUR maps the Freddie Mercury statue in the municipality; Chillon Castle and the Rochers de Naye summit lie in Veytaux and Chaplin's World in Corsier-sur-Vevey, outside it.
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Schaffhausen is the capital of the canton of Schaffhausen on the Rhine; the City of Schaffhausen describes it as the centre of a small region between Zurich and the German state of Baden-Württemberg, with a well-preserved, traffic-free historic old town. XTOUR maps the Munot fortress and the Museum zu Allerheiligen in the city, and treats the Rhine Falls downstream and Hohenklingen Castle above Stein am Rhein as places reached from Schaffhausen, not places in it.
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St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen, and the city's own guide says its old town contains the Abbey District, a UNESCO World Heritage site. XTOUR maps the Abbey Library, the cathedral, the Textile Museum and the Kunstmuseum in the city, and lists the Säntis, which lies outside it, only as a mountain based from St. Gallen.
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Zermatt is a village and municipality in the Visp district of the canton of Valais, at the foot of the Matterhorn. XTOUR maps the Matterhorn Museum in the village; the Gornergrat, the Klein Matterhorn, the Gorner Glacier and the Gorner gorge lie in the wider municipality outside the village, and the Matterhorn's summit is on the Swiss–Italian border, so XTOUR records them as places reached from Zermatt.
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Zurich is the capital of the canton of Zurich; the City of Zurich says it took its present political structure when the old town merged with eleven neighbouring municipalities in 1893, and reached its present extent with a second incorporation in 1934. XTOUR maps the Swiss National Museum, the Kunsthaus, the Museum Rietberg and the Grossmünster, Fraumünster and St. Peter churches inside the city, and treats Lake Zurich, the Uetliberg and Einsiedeln Abbey as places reached from Zurich, not places in it.
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The Abbey District of St. Gallen is the precinct of a Benedictine abbey dissolved in 1805, inscribed as World Heritage in 1983, and today shared by the cathedral, the Abbey Library, the Abbey Archives and the cantonal government. This guide sets out which of those you can visit, under which ticket and rules, from the institutions' own pages.
Every summer, cattle, sheep and goats are taken up to Swiss mountain pastures and brought down again in autumn, a practice UNESCO inscribed in 2023 as the alpine pasture season. This article sets out what UNESCO's entry and the Federal Office of Culture's longer description say about the ascent and descent, chalet cheese-making, the protected alpine cheese names, and the pressures on the practice.
Basel Carnival is a 72-hour festival that starts at four in the morning on the Monday after Ash Wednesday and has been on UNESCO's Representative List since 2017. This article sets out its shape from UNESCO's entry, the Federal Office of Culture's list of living traditions and the Fasnachts-Comité that organises the parades, including where their numbers differ and what the Comité asks of visitors.
The Kunstmuseum Basel is the city's public art collection in three buildings; the Fondation Beyeler is a separate museum in Riehen, a separate municipality near Basel, reopening in stages after an expansion. This guide compares what each is, how each sells tickets and what changes are announced, and explains why the canton's Museums Basel platform cannot be read as a count of museums in the city.
The Fortress of Bellinzona is one World Heritage property made of three castles, a wall across the Ticino valley and the town walls. This guide sets out what each part is, how the fortress's own site and the regional tourism board describe tickets and the winter season, and where the official histories disagree.
Bern's Old Town is a World Heritage property; the Zytglogge clock tower and the Minster are two buildings inside it with very different visits. This guide sets out what the Swiss Commission for UNESCO, the City of Bern and the Minster's own site say about each, including where their histories disagree.
Château de Chillon is a castle on a rocky island in Lake Geneva, at Veytaux between Montreux and Villeneuve, owned by the Canton of Vaud and run by the Chillon Castle Foundation. This guide sets out what the castle's own pages say about its history, tickets, guided tours and visitor rules, including where those pages disagree.
The Fête des Vignerons is the Vevey winegrowers' festival, staged by the Confrérie des Vignerons roughly once a generation and inscribed by UNESCO in 2016. This explainer compares how UNESCO, the Swiss list of living traditions and the Confrérie itself describe it, and says what is and is not known about the next one.
The Palais des Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum both have addresses on Avenue de la Paix in Geneva, but they are two separate visits run by two separate bodies. This guide sets out how UN Geneva's guided tours are booked during the building's renovation, what the museum is changing until 2028, and what XTOUR does not know.
Both panorama trains need two things: a ticket for the route, which a Swiss Travel Pass covers, and a seat reservation, which it does not. This guide sets out what the Glacier Express and the Rhaetian Railway say about each, when their reservations open for the 2026/2027 season, and how the Bernina Express differs from the regional trains on the same line.
Interlaken is the town between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz with the Interlaken Ost station; Grindelwald is a mountain village at the foot of the Eiger, reached by one of the Bernese Oberland Railway's two branches. This guide compares what each base puts at the door, as the two tourism boards and the Jungfrau Railways describe it, and what XTOUR cannot tell you.
The Jungfraujoch is reached only by the Jungfrau Railway, which you join either at Kleine Scheidegg or, via the Eiger Express gondola, at Eigergletscher. This guide sets out the three routes the Jungfrau Railways name, what their pages say about the paid seat reservation, the Good Morning Ticket and the passes, and where those pages disagree with each other.
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Our country and destination guides are designed to bring together practical information, accessibility, timing, culture and the details that make a trip easier to understand.