Heaven to Historic: Switzerland to Italy

For Switzerland, we picked some of “must to do” list from Nilay’s itinerary plus Jungfraujoch, got guidance and tips from Bhavini and Priyanka’s article

Nilay: Switzerland itinerary

Priyanka: Absolute Beauty: Switzerland-Paris

Bhavini: Switzerland : Europe’s mountain playground

Most of the places are well described in above article including Ami’s article, so not repeating.
As Ami mentioned,  Jungfraujoch has unique ice cave, and other activities offered at the top of the mountain, and Pilatus railway with 48% slope, the steepest cogwheel railway in the world, feel like really long ride.

We bought Swiss Travel pass, which includes free travel by train, bus, boat and gondola ride.
We did paragaliding at Interlaken, Switzerland as Interlaken has beautiful top view of 2 lakes, river connecting both the lakes, mountains and city.

Few other points to consider:

1. Google maps works perfectly everywhere for public transportation.
   It even indicates on which platform you will get your train and when is the last train/bus, including connection if any.
2. Data plan: We had T-Mobile, which includes unlimited data & text throughout Europe and India as well. With free data plan, we used WhasApp Calling most of the time, and used Hangout dialer in case if we want to call on mobile in US.
3. As Bhavini mentioned, make sure to carry credit card that offers no international transaction fee. It makes big difference. While you are in US and want to book any tickets within Europe like train or museum tickets, use the credit card with no international fee.
4. During your tour, many merchants will ask you should they charge in USD or Swiss Franc. We found to always go with Swiss Franc as our bank provides better conversion rate than theirs.
5. As Nilay mentioned, we felt power banks are must specially if you are using Google maps and phone for the photos.
6. Choose Panoramic train, if possible while exploring in Switzerland via train. It has more stops than express train with same cost, but provides really great view. Just Google it for panoramic train image. No need to book separate ticket, but just check the schedule.
7. Call your credit card company and get the Pin number of your credit card before you leave.
8. Though our credit cards worked everywhere in Switzerland and everywhere in Italy except one place in Italy. Automated ticket machine at Pisa railway station in Italy was designed to must provide pin number after you insert credit card. We tried all Visa, MS, Amex, finally used cash.
9. Before heading to any mountain Pilatus, Jungfrau,Matterhorn, etc. check the weather. Plan alternatives if the day is cloudy.
10. Plan to stay maximum days in Switzerland than any other country in Europe. You will never regret.
11. TripIt App: We used this app heavily to track the trip details. Book your ticket from anywhere, but forward your flight, hotel, train email to trip-it and it formats all correctly at one place. No need to look for flight confirmation email or hotel address.
12. Airline App: We booked in United/Lufthansa. You can watch more hindi movies than other passengers at 35K feet high if you have United app on your phone/iPad as the app provides more options.

Stay: We used Airbnb wherever we had longer stay of more than 2 days. You will get the feelings of the local living style when you stay among themselves.
Airbnb: Switzerland
Airbnb: Rome, Italy
Hotel: Venice, Florence

Italy

The day you leave Switzerland, and enter Italy or possibly any other European country, you will feel that you left the heaven and back to earth.

Few other points to consider for Italy:

• The most common sign you will find everywhere is ‘beware of pickpockets‘ and it is true. We were able to save our pockets, but observed people loosing their pockets.
• We used Rick Steves Europe tour app in Italy.  We used the app in Italy mainly Florence and Rome, it is like tour guide to understand the historic place, including minute to high level details. It’s web-site has various tips for Europe tour
  https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/chip-pin-cards

Italy: Places visited

• Venice – 1 day
• Pisa – Few hours,
• Florence – 1 day
• Rome – 2-1/2 day
• Vatican City (this is rather a country, the smallest country in the world, 20 min from Rome) – Preferably visit this on Friday. Only on Friday, they have evening/night tour, with very less crowd comparing with normal day tour where you have very little room to move. Book the ticket from US only for Friday evening vatican museum and sistine chapel tour.

We flew from Basel (Switzerland) to Venice
We took boat ride from Venice airport to San Marco and walk to hotel, Antico Panada, Venice

Day-1-2 check-in Venice at noon,
From one day itinerary of Google, we visited following https://goo.gl/Du4gLB

• Piazza San Marco
• Rialto Bridge
• Family/Couple Boat ride that gets you within Venice city
• Bridge of Sighs
• Doge’s Palace from outside

Day-2 continue: Venice/Pisa
After visiting above places in Venice, we took train to Florence
check-in at Florence around 3pm, hotel was close to railway station.
Back in train to Pisa at 5pm: Once you reach Pisa, make sure to get the ticket first if you plan to go to top of Leaning tower of Pisa. No elevator to reach to the top of Pisa, stairs only, so not good for elders or person with knee problem.
About 3 hours visit in Pisa, we were back to Florence by night.
Few Indian restaurant near Florence railway station, Florence, Gandhi. We ate at Haveli restaurant, food was good, open till 11pm.

Day-3 Explored Florence whole day
Again used Google 1 day itinerary https://goo.gl/oFe4QG
We walked to the following attractions as it is all next to each other:
Piazza della Repubblica, Florence
Piazza della Signoria
Palazzo Vecchio
Uffizi Gallery – skipped inside due to too much wait in line.
Bus to go to Piazzale Michelangelo(Google map was useful to find the timings):
Return taxi to train station to reach Rome
Booked house using Airbnb walkable to Coliseum

Day-4 Rome/Vatican city
Coliseum: Do not buy the tickets from street folks. You will be surrounded by many Indian selling tickets for 35-40 Euro. Do not stand in the line without proper enquiry.  There are 2 separate ticket counters. One selling only Coliseum ticket for 8 Euro with very long queue and wait time 1 hour. Second counter selling  tickets for 3 attractions for 12 Euro, including Coliseum and wait time about 5 minutes.  So make sure to stand in correct line
After exploringColiseum, walked to Roman Forum
Bus to Vatican City, St. Peter’s Basilica
Walk to Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel evening/night tour

Day-5 Rome
Bus to Trevi Fountain
Walking to Pantheon
Walking to Piazza Navona,
Found good vegan restaurant nearby
Bus to Vatican City
Bus to Altare della Patria

From Heavenly Switzerland to Historic Rome

Day-6 end of journey