Seven ways to experience the best of Switzerland | Travel

City break

Europe’s best crossroads city, Basel, is a short tram ride from both Germany and France. Every person who stays in a hotel or guest house here gets free public travel – from the moment you arrive, your reservation counts as your ticket from the airport. Basel isn’t just brilliant for transport nerds, it’s also an art-filled, leisure-focused haven, especially in the summer months. Locals can swim home after work, or more likely drift thanks to the current of the Rhine, keeping their clothes and belongings dry in a locally made, waterproof Wickelfisch bag. This might be Switzerland, but Basel’s art student vibe helps to keep the costs down. The university botanical gardens are free to visit, including the tropical house. Chill at Café Zum Roten Engel at Andreasplatz for kaffee und kuchen or at the Fischerstube, home of the locally acclaimed Ueli beer. Basel’s upmarket youth hostel on the banks of the Rhine was revamped by the highly hip Buchner Bründler design group and has double rooms with their own en suite.
B&B with en suite from £70pp; youthhostel.ch

Mountain sports

Laax is the Swiss mountain resort that your teenage kids won’t mind heading to, especially if they are into skateboarding. As well as an indoor hall, this summer sees the opening of the new Freestyle Academy Laax with skate bowl, vert ramp and trampolines, plus expert teaching. Riders Hotel is the unofficial heart of Laax and embraces the season in the same party-minded way it approaches the winter months. There are DJs and yoga sessions, rooms come in configurations that suit couples, families and groups of friends who want to bunk in together, and are a pleasing blend of cool concrete, plywood and large windows with dreamy views. It’s also classified as one of Switzerland’s bike hotels, with a workshop and repair area on site.
B&B doubles from £164; ridershotel.com

Land of lakes

There are about 1,500 lakes in Switzerland, from the big hitters of Lac Léman and Lake Constance to smaller idylls. In the Bernese Oberland, Blausee (“Blue lake”) lives up to its name. Just 6,400 sq m of pine-framed perfection – its deep turquoise waters are truly impressive. Take a trip on a glass-bottomed boat or enjoy a gentle walk in the surrounding woodlands. Blausee is easy to reach – the 230 bus will deliver you directly to its shores from Adelboden. The Blausee Hotel is the perfect spot in which to base yourself, with pretty views across the lake. There’s a spa and food includes fresh trout; the owners will also pack you a picnic, so you can head into the hills to enjoy it.
B&B doubles from £185; blausee.ch

Groovy Montreux

Even when the Montreux Jazz Festival finishes next week (20 July), the musical heritage continues throughout the year with jazz at Funky Claude’s Bar and tours of the Mountain Studios where Queen recorded six albums. Montreux also makes a great base for visiting the Lavaux vineyard terraces by train, heading by cable car to Glacier 3000, as well as exploring Lac Léman by standup paddleboard. Just beyond Montreux, the Hotel Masson is a three-star charmer, with old-fashioned grace, gardens that look out on to the lake and some of the area’s most affordable room rates.
B&B doubles from £220; hotelmasson.ch

Hiking and biking

A four-hour hike and a million miles from Gstaad’s glitz, the hamlet of Abländschen is pretty much just a tiny church surrounded by endless green meadows and small streams, backed by the Gastlosen range. So far, so very Heidi. However, the Hotel Zur Sau, despite its trad looks, is quietly radical. Part of a foundation that aims to use tourism to help this area become a sustainable place to live, all of its workers, along with its food, are kept local. There are hiking and biking trails from the hotel and if you’re car-free, an electric post bus, the 185, stops outside the hotel four times a day (twice in either direction).
B&B doubles from £200; bergdorf-ablaendschen.ch

Sheer style

Back in 1996, the village of Vals in the Surselva region hired architect Peter Zumthor to create a building to encase its thermal waters. His multi-award-winning building, Vals Therme, which uses more than 60,000 slabs of Vals quartzite alongside water that emerges from deep underground at 30C, has been a place of architecture-student pilgrimage ever since. It’s definitely worth a look: you can drop in for a cocktail at its Blue Bar. But to stay, Brücke 49 is a more affordable, chic guesthouse that’s owned by designer Ruth Kramer, who has created stylish, spare interiors in soothing grey, softening Vals’ local granite with sheepskin and wool. Brücke’s warm heart continues with an organic Swiss breakfast – and guests have half-price entry to the spa.
B&B doubles from £219; brucke49.ch

Italian-Swiss fusion

Switzerland borders five different countries, but Ticino, next to Italy, is the part that the Swiss try to keep to themselves. Mountains lead down to the pastel-coloured villages and towns of Lake Lugano, and the fabled Swiss efficiency comes with an extra dollop of Italian charm. It’s no surprise to learn that this is Switzerland’s foodiest area; not just vineyards and cheese-making (though they are very good) but edible flowers in the Piano di Magadino national park. Italy’s albergo diffuso movement – where restored village houses are used as places to stay – has taken root here, too. Corippo, in the village of the same name, offers simple rooms and stellar food. An hourly bus from Tenero station gets you to within a short walk of the village.
B&B doubles from £195; corippoalbergodiffuso.ch.