The Switzerland most visitors never see.
A private tour of Appenzell, ninety minutes from Zurich.
Appenzell lies ninety minutes east of Zurich, and this private tour takes in the painted village, the Santis cable car, and the dairy and the brewery that the canton actually lives on. It is the least visited corner of German-speaking Switzerland, and it is also the canton our founder grew up in, which is the reason the day is shaped the way it is.
- Duration
- A full day, of which ninety minutes each way is spent on the road.
- Pickup
- From wherever you happen to be staying in Zurich, and back to the same door.
- Group size
- Your party and nobody else, with one driver and one guide for the whole of it.
- Season
- Any month at all, though September brings the cattle down off the alp and the last days of December bring out the Silvesterchlausen.
Ninety minutes from Zurich the country changes. The houses are painted, the fields are small, and in September the cattle still come down from the alp with flowers on their heads while the whole village turns out to watch.
This is the canton our founder comes from, which is the only reason this particular day exists in the form it does.
Written about this day
An hour and a half west of here the Rhine Falls make a second day rather than an afternoon. Both are on the list of days that start in Zurich. If it is the summit rather than the canton you are after, the three mountains standing round Lake Lucerne are the other direction out of the city.