Switzerland: the ideal car-free holiday destination

By Thomas

If you want the ideal car-free destination, there is nowhere better than Switzerland. Despite its small size, Switzerland has one of the most comprehensive rail networks in the world.

Switzerland has 3,300 miles of railway in a country of just 25,000 square miles; a mile of track for every 8 square miles of countryside. That’s double the density of Britain; itself one of the densest railways in the world.

And, boy, do the Swiss use the trains. Despite living in a country six times smaller than the UK (and without a mega city like London dependent on crazy commutes), the average Swiss travels over double the annual rail mileage than the average Brit.

The whole thing is made possible by something called The Swiss Travel System. This means that, even though the Swiss transport system comprises 74 different train companies and dozens of bus and ferry companies, the whole thing is tightly integrated. One set of tickets, one set of fares and the whole thing planned together. If you’re on a late-running train in Switzerland (which doesn’t often happen) and you’re connecting onto the train of another train company, the guard will arrange for that train to be held so you can meet your connection. It all feels rather magical.

*Our first trip was when our daughter was a baby. She woke up as soon as we stopped bouncing her. So one of us had to stand on every train and… bounce*

Where to go

Given the extraordinary natural beauty of Switzerland and the fact that everywhere is accessible car-free, that’s a rather tough question.

But I would probably most recommend Graubünden, the largest of the Swiss cantons, occupying the whole of the South-East corner. This is purest Alpine Switzerland; towering mountains and deep valleys. Graubünden is also rather fascinating as it has a very well-developed regional identity as a canton, but speaks three different languages. The south speaks Italian (and eats pasta!); the north speaks German, while certain towns speak Romansch, the only language spoken in Switzerland that is uniquely Swiss.

Rhätische Bahn

The majority of train lines in Graubünden are run by the extraordinary Rhätische Bahn. This railway takes you to places that you feel ought not be possible. If you want a glimpse, use Google Streetview. Unlike other rail lines, the Rhätische Bahn tracks are covered by Streetview. Here’s just one of thousands of possible examples!

One of the joys of the Rhatische Bahn is that it penetrates the very heart of the Alps, so you have a huge range of wonderful places to stay. But here are some examples of places we’ve been to and can vouch for personally:

Poschiavo

One of the weird (and lovely) things about Switzerland as a destination is the way it has such neatly defined language borders. These borders are entirely different to the political borders of the cantons, and yet are more forcibly imprinted into Swiss culture than anything else about the country. Rather wonderfully, the border between French and German-speaking Switzerland is known as the Röstigraben or Rosti-trench, because German-speaking Swiss eat Rosti but French-speaking Swiss do not.

These language borders, despite appearing on no maps, are absolutely rigid: on one side, everyone speaks one language and on the other side, another. 15% of Swiss have never crossed the Röstigraben!

The language line in Graubünden between German and Italian reflects the watershed: where rivers drain towards the Mediterranian people speak Italian; where rivers drain towards the Danube they speak German.

Poschiavo is firmly in the Italian segment. It’s a beautiful, Italianate town, nestled in a cradle of snow-capped mountains. The architecture is distinctly reminiscent of Italy (which surrounds that part of Graubünden on three sides), and, yes, the food is Italian as well. As is the coffee!

My mum in Poschiavo, underneath a very Italianate campanile, next to very Swiss snow! — *Thomas’s mum in Poschiavo, underneath a very Italianate campanile, next to very Swiss snow!*

Just south of Poschiavo is one of the most famous bridges on the Rhatische Bahn, where the railway does a full circle in order to gain height.

Bernina

This is the height point you can reach in Europe on an ‘ordinary’ train. Switzerland is packed with mountain railways that will take you higher, but the trains from Tirano in Italy north to San Moritz will sweep you over the Bernina pass, topping out at 2,328 m or 7,638.

At the little Ospizio Bernina, normally no-one gets off and no-one gets on. That’s a terrible shame, as there’s a gorgeous little hotel here on the roof of Europe. We stayed after an incredible blizzard with snow so deep it closed the railway (and that never happens in Switzerland).

*Breakfast in the hotel. You can see the line of the snowdrifts on the window!*

Stuck in Bernina for an extra morning, we borrowed snow shoes from the hotel’s charming owner and set off across country (actually, that turned out not to be such a good idea; unknowingly, we walked right into an avalanche zone). It was enormous fun in an absolutely unique location.

*The hotel. I did say the snow was deep!*

Scuol

At the end of a branch line off a branch line is little Scuol, one of the last hide-outs of the unique Romansh language. Spoken as first language by just 44,000 people (that’s fewer than live in my native Walthamstow), Romansh is meant to be the closest surviving relation to Latin (I’m afraid I never got to learn Latin as a kid, so I can’t validate this).

Scuol is fab: this part of Swizterland (known as the Engadine Valley) has a tradition of finely painted decorations on the houses, which is charming. And Scuol has an incredible hot thermal spa which our daughter loved - especially where you can swim between the indoor and outdoor sections of the pool entirely in the thick, hot water.

The Engadine Valley, like the Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland, also brings with it its own, unique culinary traditions.

Celerina

Graubunden, like Switzerland as a whole, is majority German-speaking, but this is the first German town on the list.

Celerina is a ski resort, so possibly a strange place for us to stay given that none of us ski. But a ski resort means cable cars, and that means a chance for our daughter to have the chance (never forgotten!) to play on a playground at the top of a mountain.

*Anna still talks about ‘the playground on the mountain’*

The village is pleasant enough (if somewhat forgettable), though Anna never forgot that in the course of one shopping trip on the high street, the baker gave her a free mouse-shaped cookie and the chemist gave her a mini bottle of perfume. (One thing we discovered on our travels is that the Swiss really love kids - even more than the Italians).

Other places

These four are of the places we visited, and can whole-heartedly recommend them all. Other options are available: by far the most popular destination in Graubünden is San Moritz, but we didn’t fancy that. When we were thinking about where to stay, I did a Google Maps search for the word “Shop” in San Moritz. This told me everything I needed to know - that it wasn’t our scene:

*No groceries available, but a new handbag anyone?*

Meanwhile the main city in Graubünden is Chur, reputedly the oldest town in Switzerland. It looks absolutely charming, but we fancied being up in the mountains so, other than changing trains there, we never saw Chur.

How to get to Graubünden

Getting to Switzerland is incredibly easy. Get the Eurostar to Paris and cross over to Gare du Lyon (two stops on RER line D) and get the TGV to either Basel or Zurich, then an Intercity train to Chur. From Chur, the Rhätische Bahn takes over to wherever in Graubünden you’re staying. The incomparable Man in Seat 61 has all the train details.

If you’re travelling as a family, I have one treat you can look forward to. You know I said the Swiss like kids? Well, intercity trains in Switzerland have a playground!

When booking, just make sure you book a train with this message.

Tickets and all that

For your train tickets to Switzerland, just use the Trainline app. It works really well, gives you the lowest price and you can use an m-ticket on your phone.

Once in Switzerland, I recommend the “SBB Mobile” app, which is really self-explanatory. You can use this to buy single tickets or, if you’re planning any amount of travel, the incredible SwissPass, which gives you unlimited travel on everything that moves throughout Switzerland.

For your impromptu trips, the app allows you to simply swipe right to indicate you’re starting a trip and swipe left when you get where you’re going. You’ll then be charged the lowest fare for the trip you made. And, like everything in Switzerland, this little piece of magic works on trains, boats, buses, trams and everything else that moves.

This wasn’t quite the post I intended

When I started this post, I intended it to be more generally about Switzerland. But reading back, I seem to have got a bit caught up on Graubünden. That’s hardly surprising: it’s an amazing car-free destination. But there are loads of other incredible places we’ve been to in Switzerland that I’d love to share (including the only public transport I’ve ever been on entirely powered by poo).

Watch this space and I’ll do another post sometime soon!