Autumn Is Switzerland’s Secret Season – Here Are 6 Ways To Experience It Best

Vineyard Tours

Like autumn itself, Swiss wine has managed to remain rather well hidden from the rest of us. Since only around 1 percent of the country’s wine is exported, there’s an obvious solution: go straight to the source. Whether you simply enjoy a glass with dinner or qualify as a fully fledged oenophile, Switzerland’s wine experiences span tastings, vineyard and cellar tours, museums, self-guided road trips and overnight stays. Together, they reveal a winemaking culture that curves around the southwest of the country, from the Three Lakes region down to Geneva, across Valais and into Ticino. Autumn brings an added sense of occasion as the vineyards reach harvest season, while their steep terraces and surrounding mountains provide a suitably dramatic backdrop to proceedings.

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Hiking & Biking

There are circular hiking trails tracing Switzerland’s vineyards as they tumble down the hillsides, but that’s just the beginning when it comes to exploring the country on two feet – or two wheels. The sheer altitude of many of Switzerland’s autumnal routes means far-reaching views come as standard, from rugged Alpine terrain to glassy glacial lakes, while cable cars and mountain trains can take some of the strain out of the ascent. If autumn colour is top of the agenda, make for the golden forests of Valais, where the area surrounding Cabane de Balavaux is home to some of Europe’s most impressive ancient larches. Or head south to Ticino, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton, where forests take on rich autumnal hues and hiking trails weave between mountains, lakes and traditional grotti. These rustic local restaurants provide particularly welcome stopping points, serving regional dishes and refreshments along the way. Discover all the autumnal excursions and choose your favourite at myswitzerland.com

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Delicious Cuisine

Speaking of welcome refreshments, autumn is an especially rewarding time to eat your way around Switzerland. As game season peaks hearty dishes return to menus, with venison and wild boar typically accompanied by spätzle (egg noodles), red cabbage and pears with lingonberry sauce. Forest mushrooms and seasonal pumpkins also make the most of the autumn harvest, but chestnuts are perhaps the season’s star ingredient. Street carts ward off the chill in Swiss towns with bags of hot roasted chestnuts, while Vermicelles transforms them into something sweeter: a popular Swiss-Italian dessert of sweetened chestnut purée piped into spaghetti-like strands and usually served with whipped cream or meringue. In Valais, meanwhile, they take a savoury turn in Brisolée, a convivial spread of hot roasted chestnuts, rye bread, dried meats and local cheeses designed for sharing.

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Wildlife

Ibexes, chamois, bearded vultures and beavers: Switzerland’s mountains and valleys are inhabited by an impressive cast of characters. Autumn brings some of the best opportunities to seek them out, with guided wildlife tours offering a closer look and the nature reserves of Graubünden providing plenty of scope for combining animal spotting with a long-distance hike. Then there’s rutting season, one of autumn’s great natural dramas. Val Trupchun in the Swiss National Park is particularly renowned for its red deer, which gather in large herds at this time of year. Competing for the attention of females, stags stalk through the valleys with antlers on display, their deep bellows carrying across the landscape. Discover more at myswitzerland.com

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The Cattle Descent

It may be one of Switzerland’s most celebrated traditions, but the annual cattle descent (known as ‘alpabzug’) is little known beyond the country’s mountainous borders. When the days shorten and nighttime temperatures drop, it’s time for cows, goats, sheep and even some alpacas to leave their summer pastures up on the Alp and make their way back down into the valley, accompanied by their herdsmen. It’s an ancient custom turned exuberant autumn celebration: cattle are crowned with elaborate floral headpieces known as tschäppl, while herdsmen don traditional finery and villages fill with music, markets, yodelling and the distinctive sound of alphorns. Intricately decorated bells complete the spectacle, while visitors line the streets to watch the procession make its way home.

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Scenic Travel

Switzerland has a persuasive claim to one of the world’s finest railway systems, with scenery to match. Trains thread through mountains, valleys and villages, skirting crystal-clear lakes and passing ice-blue glaciers, making rail an easy way to transform a single-stop holiday into a wider Swiss adventure. The Glacier Express crosses 291 bridges on its journey through the Alps; the GoldenPass Express links Interlaken with Montreux; and the Gotthard Panorama Express follows a historic route through the heart of the country.

But trains aren’t the only way to make the journey part of the experience. Switzerland’s cable cars provide an entirely different perspective, lifting passengers above rolling meadows, forests and mountain peaks as the landscape recedes below. Zermatt’s Matterhorn Glacier Paradise cable car takes this to an extreme, climbing to 3,883 metres and Europe’s highest cable car station. Many cable cars continue operating into late October before closing for pre-winter maintenance, meaning autumn travellers can look down on forests of golden larch and green valleys while snow begins to settle on the peaks above.

For a slower pace, take to the water. Boats continue to cross Lake Geneva, Lake Thun, Lake Lucerne and Lake Zurich throughout autumn, with vineyards, castles and increasingly snow-dusted mountains unfolding along the shoreline. Boat trips at Rhine Falls also operate through the season, providing a rather more dramatic finale: an up-close encounter with Europe’s largest waterfall by volume.

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