Anonymous wrote:If we were gojng go do a river cruise out of Basel in July with teens, how would you spend 4/5 days prior to that? Fly to Paris and train from there? Anyplace between to stop?
Fly to Zurich and see the Bernese oberland?
We’ve been to Paris but only for a day trip so didn’t see much except the big highlights, and have never been to Switzerland. Have never been anyplace else in France. (This makes us sound like total rubes but we’ve been to other European countries and lots of Latin American ones — just never Switzerland or really France!). We speak no French or German, if that matters at all.
If we could get a non stop daytime flight that would be a major advantage but I think it’s all red eyes to Europe now, right?
Interested to hear more about the river cruise- my understanding is that those are primarily aimed at retirees, wondering how your teens will like it. But no of course you aren't rubes if you haven't been to Switzerland or France before!
The only daytime flights now are from New York or Boston to London, and they arrive too late to get connections anywhere, so you would have to stay at least the night in London and fly to wherever the next morning anyway.
Personally I would fly nonstop to Zurich, train to Bernese Oberland (just over 2 hours from Zurich Airport to Interlaken), spend 4-5 days exploring the area, then it's very easy 2 hour train ride from Interlaken to Basel.