The Don´t Tell Pass

It`s a well-known secret that Switzerland is an expensive place to live and to visit . As someone who does both and is time-rich and money-poor it is very tough to explore all the spectacular sights this small country has to offer. A trip up the mountain by cable-car, a sunset turn on the lake by boat, an ordinary meal with a very small glass of wine or even visiting a museum could see you having spent your weekly income. And no - not all Swiss people are rich. In fact, Pro Familia and Pax revealed in March 2024 that almost half of all Swiss families are unable to save anything off their income for unexpected expenses.

So what do you do if visitors are coming and you are living in one of the most spectacular regions of the Alps. To find out we took our list of most wanted attraction to the Swiss Public Transport provider - the SBB. Their website and Info leaflets are a mass of photos of smiley people admiring happy cows on flower-dotted alpine meadows. The ticket menu has as many variations, offers and - sadly - exclusions than the world´s largest ice-cream parlour has flavours.Our own personal guide, SBB advisor Madeline, did her best to entice us to just go for a simple option of buying a 5 day tourist GA (a sort of free for all) which would have cost more than my entire monthly pass for the area for one person. And there were 3 of them. We continues asking to having our planned trips priced out individually, when persistence paid off. After a good hour Madeline pulled out a small greenish leaflet - the Tell Pass. Named after Schiller´s eponymous hero and Swiss Resistance Fighter extraordinaire it´s a special travel pass for the Central Swiss Region where his adventures took place. It can be used on all sorts of public transport, from cheapish busses, trams, trains to mountain railways, cable cars, boats and even lifts like the Hammerschwand or the hotel lift up to Lucernes `meringue-look` hotel Gütsch. The pass can be used on 2-4 consecutive days and although certainly not a bargain by far beats all other options as to cost. No wonder the Swiss keep quite about it - Don´t Tell.

So here is where we went - on day one we went to the extraordinary pilgrims´chapel of Hergiswald, then on to Kriens to ascend to Pilatus on its various cable cars. In the evening we went into Lucerne for a sunset tour of the Vierwaldstätter See by boat. The following day we traveled though the UNESCO biosphere of Entlebuch to the Emmenthal where we made cheese. On the final day we went all the way to Meiringen to stroll along the spectacular Aareschlucht and visit the Sherlock Holmes museum. The train journey was amazing, happy cows, alpine pastures, Swiss chalets, snow-capped mountains and sky-blue lakes galore.

So my advice is, don´t accept the option, be flexible and look for as much information as possible from all kinds of sources before you visit. Only spend the money you can afford to loose.