Lucerne
Switzerland
A painted wooden bridge over a green river, a lake with steamers on it, and two mountains at the end of the line
Photo by Geertje Caliguire on Unsplash
Photos by Tom Bradley, diana shturm, Lin Mei and Silvan Arnet on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Switzerland
May to October — and December for the lake in fog, if you like that
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 145mm in Jul
Where it is
47.05°N, 8.31°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Cross the Kapellbrücke and look up at the panel paintings
- Do the Pilatus golden round trip — boat, cogwheel, cable car, bus
- Take a steamer down the lake with no plan
- See the Lion Monument, which Mark Twain called the saddest stone in the world
- Ride the Golden Pass towards Interlaken
Lucerne travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Switzerland
Very expensiveCards everywhere. Euros are often accepted and always at a rate that costs you — pay in francs. Swiss prices are the thing to prepare for, not the payment method.
ATMs & cards
UBS, Raiffeisen and PostFinance machines around the station and the old town. Refuse dynamic conversion. Ask for smaller notes — the machines default to CHF 100 and a café will wince.
Avoid these
- the exchange booths beside the station
Use these instead
- UBS
- Raiffeisen
- PostFinance
Refuse dynamic conversion, and ask for smaller notes than the CHF 100 the machines prefer.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Switzerland
Very safeAs safe as anywhere in Europe, and comfortable at any hour. The practical cautions are the lake and the mountains: the water is cold enough year-round to cause trouble quickly, and Pilatus and Rigi have real weather at the top even when the town is warm. Take a layer on the cable car.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the station underpass late at night — nothing more than the usual late-night drinking
- Pilatus and Rigi in cloud — the trains run in weather that leaves you with no view and a cold wait at the top
Among the safest cities in Europe. Budget for the prices rather than for trouble..
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Switzerland visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Switzerland
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Tetanus up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for a summer in forest below 1,500m
Getting treated
Among the best in the world, and among the most expensive. Treatment is billed and there is no free emergency care for visitors — the EHIC covers EU citizens, everybody else needs insurance. Rega, the air rescue service, will fly you off a mountain and will invoice for it.
Nothing infectious. Altitude sickness above 3,000m, which the Jungfraujoch train reaches in two hours from 570m, and which catches people out. Ticks in summer woodland. And the sun at altitude, which burns through cloud.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodCentral Switzerland means Chügelipastete, a puff-pastry case of veal and mushrooms, and Älplermagronen — macaroni, potato, cheese and apple sauce, which sounds wrong and is a mountain classic. Lake fish, and Luzerner Lebkuchen for the journey home.
Getting around
Easy and cheap- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- Against a taxi
- Cheaper than a Swiss taxi, which is among the dearest in the world. Both are dear.
The rules vary by canton and the supply is thinnest away from the biggest cities.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Zurich — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Switzerland
Why these are Switzerland's numbers and not Lucerne's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2.2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at about the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Lucerne, so these are medians for all of Switzerland. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Switzerland, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Swiss German
- HelloGrüeziGROO-eh-tsee
- Hello (to a group)Grüezi mitenandGROO-eh-tsee MIT-eh-nand
- PleaseBitteBIT-uh
- Thank youMerci vielmalMER-see FEEL-mahl
5 more phrases
- Yes / NoJa / Neiyah / nay
- Excuse meEntschuldigungent-SHOOL-di-gung
- How much is it?Was choschtet das?vas KHOSH-tet dass
- CheersProschtprosht
- GoodbyeUf Wiederluegeoof VEE-der-loo-eh-guh
Written German, spoken Swiss German — and the spoken form is different enough that Germans need subtitles on Swiss television. Everybody in Interlaken speaks English. Grüezi is the one word that changes a room.
Religion
Catholic and Protestant in roughly equal parts, and increasingly neither
Split canton by canton since the Reformation, which is why two neighbouring valleys can look entirely different. Sunday is genuinely quiet everywhere — the shops shut and the noise rules apply.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Be exactly on time. A dinner at seven means seven, and the trains mean it too
- Greet the room on entering a small shop or a mountain hut — grüezi in the German part, bonjour in the French
- Sort your rubbish, which is taken very seriously and is sometimes checked
- Say grüezi mitenand to a group, which is the plural and is noticed
Don't
- Do not make noise on a Sunday — no mowing, no drilling, and in many buildings no laundry
- Do not assume Switzerland is Germany or France; it is neither and the point matters
- Do not haggle, and do not ask for a discount
- Do not step onto a marked hiking trail in trainers and expect sympathy
Where to stay in Lucerne
No Holistay rentals in Lucerne yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Lucerne on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Zurich ZRH
1hfrom the airport· 49 km as the crow flies
1h by direct train.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
