Around Zurich

Zurich’s real advantage as a base is that the country is small and the trains are fast. Half of Switzerland is inside two hours, and a good deal of it is inside one.

Ranked by how much they repay the journey.

Under an hour

Rapperswil — 40 min by train, 2 h by boat

At the far end of the lake: a castle on a rock, an old town of painted houses, a famous rose garden, and a wooden footbridge running 841 m across the water to Hurden, on the line of a crossing that has existed since the Bronze Age.

Go by boat rather than train if the weather is good — two hours down the lake, covered by a Zurich day pass for part of the way and by a Swiss Travel Pass throughout.

Rapperswil also has the Circus Museum and, oddly, a Polish museum in the castle, left over from a nineteenth-century exile community.

Rhine Falls — 50 min

The largest waterfall in Europe by volume, with a boat out to the rock in the middle of it. Half a day, and it combines with Schaffhausen or Stein am Rhein into a full one. See the Rhine Falls.

Lucerne — 45 min

The best-looking town in the country, on the most dramatic lake, with two mountains behind it. If you make one day trip, make it this. See Lucerne.

Winterthur — 25 min

Rarely mentioned and worth it: an industrial town with an art collection out of all proportion to its size. The Kunst Museum Winterthur and the Villa Flora hold Bonnard, Vuillard, Van Gogh and Cézanne, largely from the Hahnloser and Reinhart collections. Also the Technorama, the best science museum in Switzerland, which is a rainy-day answer with children.

Uetliberg — 25 min

Not out of the city at all: the S10 from the main station on an ordinary ticket to 870 m, with the lake and the Alps laid out below. Free apart from the fare, and the standard Zurich sunset. See one day in Zurich.

Baden — 20 min

The Roman spa, with the hottest and most mineral-rich springs in Switzerland and a new bath house by Mario Botta. A soak and a small old town. See thermal baths.

An hour to two

• Bern — an hour, the UNESCO old town and the arcades
• Basel — an hour, and the best art in the country
• Stein am Rhein — an hour, the painted square
• Appenzell — an hour and a half, and the least international corner of Switzerland
• Einsiedeln — an hour, a vast baroque monastery with a black madonna, and one of the largest pilgrimage sites north of the Alps
• Flumserberg — an hour and a half, skiing in winter and walking in summer, and the closest proper mountain

Two hours and worth the day

• Interlaken and the Jungfrau region — two hours, and the start of the high mountains
• Lugano — two hours through the Gotthard tunnel into another climate
• Zermatt — three and a quarter, which is really an overnight rather than a day

Practical

• Everything above is by train, and most of it is direct from Zurich HB or the airport.
• A Saver Day Pass bought in advance usually beats two singles; see tickets and passes.
• Check the weather where you are going, not where you are. Zurich under low cloud in winter is often an hour from bright sun above 1,500 m — that is the argument for a mountain day rather than against it.