katu41

I may have replied by mistake to another responder.
Thanks so much for your detailed response. I looked at your photos and this is exactly what I would like to see. Can I access these areas on my own without a guide or will I need my own car to get from my city hotel to the sites?

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

The first 4 Albums in this Collection are of that region.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8712554@N02/collections/72157624670921871/

zug55 Loc: Naivasha, Kenya, and Austin, Texas

Anything I suggested above can be done by public transportation--train, mountain railways, aerial tramways, boats. What is cool is that all modes of transportation are integrated. If you want to travel to the Rigi from Lucerne, for instance, you start out at the boat dock in Lucerne that is right next to the train station. Once you arrive in Vitznau by boat, the train is just a few steps from the boat landing. There is signage everywhere--and you can ask people for directions. So everything is easy to navigate even for inexperienced novices. No guides necessary--in fact I can't think that such services even exist.

jimcrna Loc: indiana/florida

katu41. check out "tours by locals" web site ..I have used them in many cities and they are of great help..they drive, show you what you want and you get to see the scenery and not worry about driving and navigation..they also may show you off the beaten path photo areas without so many visitors..have always been happy with the service.good luck,jim

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

I am a little bit late in joining this thread, but I just noticed your post. Like zug55, I grew up about 10 miles away from Lucerne and while I now live in the US, I frequently visit Switzerland and most of its regions.

The suggestions by zug55 are excellent and cover right the heart of Central Switzerland. The Rigi and Pilatus are majestic mountains that are also conveniently reached by public transportation. While public transportation in Switzerland is excellent and the integrated combination of trains and buses is very dense, I personally find that I am too hemmed in by train schedules and the inability to stop on a whim at points on the route that present photogenic moments. Therefore I exclusively travel by car when in Switzerland, and Europe in general. Is there any chance that you might consider renting a car and doing self-drives? In today's cars with integrated GPS, driving is really not that difficult.

To zug55's suggestion, I might just add one other locations around LUCERNE that we frequently visit, which also provides great views and the chance to do short, easy walks in the mountainous areas: KLEWENALP which is located close to the Pilatus mountain and just across the lake from the Rigi. It is accessed by cable car from the village of Beckenried, which can be reached from Lucerne leisurely by boat, a bit more intricate by train/bus combination or much easier by car.

I have a couple of further suggestions for trips into the mountains from ZURICH. The FLUMSERBERGE are an interesting hill-country area with great views into the Churfirsten mountain chain and provide some easy, short walking trails. Another spectacular area is the Toggenburg/Appenzell region, with rolling hills, typical local farm style architecture with painted houses, etc. Main points here would be Hemberg in the Toggenburg (canton St Gallen), the town of Appenzell, as well as the Säntis and Hoher Kasten mountains, which can both be reached by public transportation and cable cars as the final link.

I invite you to have a look at some of my photo albums on Switzerland which cover part of these areas. The problem with these albums is that they are structured by individual trips that we took and are thus a bit haphazard. My idea is to eventually cull the photos and combine them into regional albums, but I am not there yet. But nevertheless, these pictures might provide you with some regional choices and starting points for selection of the places you want to see. Be forewarned: Even though Switzerland is not large, it is very diverse and mountainous which makes it more time-consuming to reach the more outlying areas, far away from the cities and crowds. Late September should be a good time to travel, the weather is normally quite consistent and the first color changes will get into the trees.

You can get to my albums at: weberwest.weebly.com I suggest you click on the "Albums-Geographical" tab, then scoot down to Europe-Central where you find 5 albums on Switzerland. Forget about the Christmas album, but particularly the "Switzerland - North-East" album will show you areas that are in the vicinity of Zurich. The blocks of different areas are identified by a lead-photo with superimposed area-title indicating the canton (state) and location. Towards the end of this album, you will find pictures from Appenzell and St. Gallen covering some of the places I indicated above but sorry, there are no pictures of the Säntis and Hoher Kasten yet, I still have to work on these albums. Pictures from the Klewenalp are in the album "Switzerland - 2013/08". With all of these pictures, you can scoot through the relatively large thumbnails (courtesy of Google Photos). When you come to a titled area that particularly interests you, click on the photo, it will enlarge to fill the screen and provide in the right sidebar information on the location of the picture (you might have to click on the little "i" in the upper right corner to toggle to activate or inactivate the side bar). You may want to open a google map to locate these places.

I hope this helps somewhat in providing you with more widely spread info on my beautiful homeland.

PS - as an afterthought: We will also be spending the month of September in Europe, mostly in Switzerland and I might be able to give you a one-day tour in my rental car including some of the places mentioned above, i.e. as a suggestion the combination of Flumserberge/Toggenburg/Appenzell. But it would depend very much on your timing and of course also on the weather. Some of my days are already blocked, and we plan to take a 2-week trip through the Eastern Alps (NE Italy, N Slovenia & SE Austria) in mid-September.

Let me know if you would like any further input.

katu41

Your information has been very helpful and I am going to build my trip around your suggestions.

zug55 Loc: Naivasha, Kenya, and Austin, Texas

The Klewenalp is lovely. It is great point of departure for scenic hikes. But the Klewenalp lacks the views of the high Alps. The view is nice, but not comparable to the Pilatus or Rigi. I was there just last October and took this shot--the fog covering the valleys as is relatively common in fall.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/zug55/30628524727/in/album-72157698341955500/

There are many great places to visit in Switzerland. OP asked for scenic vistas of valleys and Alps without lots of walking, and easy to reach from Zurich or Lucerne--I still think that Pilatus or Rigi are hard to match.

katu41

Thanks for your input. I will be checking this out.

zug55 Loc: Naivasha, Kenya, and Austin, Texas

Have a great trip! I hope that the weather plays along!

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

You got some very nice shots there zug55 - I particularly like the fog picture, reminded me of a similar shot I took from the Seebodenalp a year or so ago. I took the liberty of having a look at some of your pictures on Flickr, some very nice and interesting shots there as well and it reminded me that I should return to the Oeschinensee, haven't been there for many decades!

Have a great day.

katu41

Thanks for your detailed info. There is a lot of solid info that I will use to plan our trip.

Unfortunately, the tour we are taking does not give us a lot of time in Switzerland. We have only one full day in Lucerne and one full day in Zurich. I can probably get in some extra time to shoot early in the morning or early evening on travel days. I am thinking of adding an extra day in Zurich for an Alps day trip. Does this work or would I be better off doing the day trip out of Lucerne?

I looked at your photo website and was quite impressed. I can see that we both have similar interests in our photography. I was especially interested in your Myanmar photos. I had a trip planned there for January, 2018 but had to cancel due to the political unrest. It has been on my bucket list for a long time but it just didn't seem like the right time to go. Instead, we did a trip to southern India which was excellent (We had done northern India the previous year. If you haven't been to India, I highly recommend it.

My usual format for my photos are coffee table photo book done on Blurb. If you would like to see some of my work, you can find it at blurb.com. In the search box type in my last name "katunich". You should find a list of all of my books. I suggest you look for "That's Life, Volume III". This has a selection of my better photos covering several topic areas. Volumes I and II cover additional subject areas.

Again, thanks for reaching out with so much info.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Just a quick note - thanks for your message. I had a very quick look through the book you suggested, and I was quite impressed. We seem to have covered many of the same places at one time or another. On my present picture website, I only have pictures since 2011, with a couple of 2010 thrown in but not complete. I vowed not to miss anything I took and just plod along -I am about 3 years behind right now, working on a trip to Oman in the spring of 2016. If ever I catch up, and I sort doubt about it, I will try to work from 2010 backwards. - I will try to find some time to have a more in-depth look at your vast collection, but presently I am running out of time, we are on the way over to Europe in a week, travelling there for 2 months and I still need to do some prep work. And then we will go back over there again in mid-August to early October. Maybe I will find some time while parked over there on a rainy day!

Yes, India is interesting and I might make it back again one of these years. I spent substantial time out there working in the 60's and early 70's throughout Asia, but of course all those pictures are languishing away in boxes of slides ... never to be finalized. So is life.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Sorry - just one more note, I didn't respond to your question re the Swiss trip. If you are going to take up zug55's suggestion of going up to the Rigi -and it is a very good suggestion, then Lucerne would be the logical place to start and you would have the Rigi right in front of you on the whole trip if you take the boat. But as zug55 indicated, the distance is not far and you can equally well do it from Zurich by public transport.

My offer still stands - and even more so as I have seen your photos - if our day availabilities would allow it, I would be happy to give you and your wife a day tour or a partial day tour out of Zurich into some of the areas I mentioned. For the Rigi, you don't need any guide, it is easy to use public transport and do it yourselves.

Whatever you decide, I do hope that the weather gods are going to be with you - so that you have a clear day to really see the mountains!

Best - Joe

katu41

Thank you for your generous offer regarding helping us around Zurich. We are adding an extra day in Zurich and it looks like we have the full days of September 29 and 30th. Departing on October 1. If we could work it out to meet, that would be great. My wife is hesitant to accept your invitation so let's leave the door open for a final confirmation.

George

Photocraig

I've traveled to Switzerland a few times and love it to this day. I found the Tourist Offices to be so exceptionally competent and zealously helpful that If I were in need of such a service, I would ask there. The Concierges in Europe are quite excellent, too and I'd suspect the Swiss to lead the pack--if you're using an upper level hotel.

I took the train from the Zurich Airport to the main Banhoff in Zurich (the way it oughta be everywhere!) and used the tourist office in that station.
C
Don't miss the Muenster Church with the Chagall stained Glass windows. A Lake boat trip on the Zurichsee (Lake Zurich) will provide some excellent photo opportunities, too. Imagine, that 's some folks' daily commute.

Enjoy,
C