It’s less of a trek with smarter tech

It’s the stuff of dreams – a holiday without a hire car – thanks to a groundbreaking new app. Sean Thomas puts it to the test in Switzerland

There are many reasons to visit Switzerland. It is beautiful, safe, clean and prosperous. It boasts ancient cities, mighty glaciers, brilliant skiing, an exciting number (four) of native languages, some of the most opulent hotels on the planet, plus stupendous mountains. But it also has another sensational, yet lesser-known attraction: a mind-blowingly clever travel app.

It may sound absurd, comparing an app to the Alps. But this app – SBB Mobile – is something remarkable. It is, indeed, the Matterhorn of apps. Which is probably why three million Swiss people (almost half the country) have downloaded it. Yet this app is not just for locals. If you’re a tourist, the SBB app makes it incredibly easy to exploit Switzerland’s luxuriously efficient, gloriously integrated public transport system – trains, buses, trams, ferries, bikes – meaning you can nip around this compact country with ease, and see the best of it all, without going near a car.

First, however, you need to base yourself in a suitable Swiss city. I chose Lucerne, partly because it is smackbang in the middle of the country, but also because it is, quite frankly, exquisite. Surrounded by classic Swiss countryside – where snow-loaded mountains gaze down at surreally green meadows – the little lake-and-riverside city dates back to the ninth century and has been adorned ever since with ancient battlements, painted chapels, excellent watch shops, delicately stencilled houses, world-class concert halls, fondue haunts, piazzas full of laughing students and two celebrated roofed medieval bridges. The grander of these was saved by early British tourists, who were scandalised when the Swiss suggested knocking them down in the 1860s.

Most of the action in Lucerne takes place in the Old Town (Altstadt) – an enticing stretch of town, rambling along the translucent river Reuss, which gives it a hint of Venice, and roughly delineated by those castellated walls and towers. This is where you’ll find many of the prettiest and busiest

I jumped on another madly punctual bus which took me to the tinkle of cowbells

bars, restaurants, market stalls and vinotheks. I stayed at the Hotel Wilden Mann, squirrelled away in the southern quarter of the Old Town. Five hundred years old, and still charming the tourists, it does a fine leg of roast hare in the moonlit restaurant terrace.

Next morning, it was time to use my app (along with my eight-day Swiss Travel pass, which gives me free access to all public transport, museums, you name it). I wanted to see the brooding, serrated peaks of Mount Pilatus, which loom over Lucerne like a gang of menacing limestone Mafiosi.

The app did not let me down; with its in-built map it guided me precisely to the right bus stop, for precisely the right bus (which arrived all of five seconds late), which took me to a cable car that wobbled excitingly through chasms, twixt cliffs, and all the way up the mountain, which is either named after the pillowy clouds that constantly blanket the summits, or because Pontius Pilate was secretly buried here by a cult of monks. Opinions differ.

I could have stayed up in those peaks for a night or two. There are hotels in the toppling heights, surveying half of Switzerland; there are also shops, cafés and windy beer terraces. Instead I opted for lunch and a “salad”. This turned out to be fish, lettuce, pickles, sweetcorn, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes, melon, lentils and tartare sauce, all on one plate, as if a famished Russian had gone mad at an all-you-can-eat Garfunkel’s buffet in about 1988. Lunch sort-of eaten, I used my app to guide me down the other side of the mountain, via the world’s “steepest cog railway” (a cute little red thing). After that, the app smoothly concierged me onto a steam-boat, which glides around the glittery calmness of Lake Lucerne to the city’s ferry terminus. And then it was a trivial yet winsome walk to my hotel.

By this time I was addicted. You can do anything? Go anywhere? Seriously? So I did. I took a train trip to Mount Rigi, which is like Pilatus but with zip wires, paragliding and corridors through glaciers (and excellent skiing in season). I jumped on another madly punctual bus which took me to Seelisberg, Rutli and Lake Uri, and the tinkle of cowbells. The next day, at 9am, I was standing in bustling Germanic middleEuropean Bahnhof Luzern; yet at 10.51 am (yes, less than two hours later) I was stepping out into an entirely different

world: the burning southern sunshine of Locarno, in Ticino, in the Italianspeaking part of Switzerland.

Here, the churches are pastel, the campaniles Tuscan, and the lake is Maggiore. The piazzas were full of exuberant people saying ciao-ciao under the rustling palms while guzzling local vino. I got my fill of this excellent wine at Castello del Sole, a fabulous ducal estate of a hotel, settled in an Alpine river delta, which boasts 150 hectares of orchards, herb gardens, rice fields and vineyards which make some of the best merlot in Europe. Even if you don’t stay at the Castello, or eat in its Michelinstarred restaurant (the Locanda Barbarossa), you must try the wine.

For once, I was staying – but around the corner from Locarno (a 10-minute bus ride!), in Ascona. I had a room at the plutocratic Eden Roc, which boasts spas, pools, gardens, saunas, treatments and a bijou cottage right by the lake where the Nazis first sued for peace with the Allies in March 1945. I had the best spaghetti alle vongole of my life in the Eden Roc’s supposedly lesser restaurant, Marina, then I took my oakaged grappa and watched the lights of Lake Maggiore’s towns and villages spill down to the darkened waters, like the mile-high slopes of basalt had been sprinkled with a billion golden jewels.

Next morning, I was back in Lucerne before you could say Alplermagronen (a kind of cheesy-macaroni-apple mountain dish; much better than it sounds). At this point I sauntered – without the aid of the app this time – three minutes from my hotel to the Rosengart Collection, one of the great small museums in the world. I’ll just say these words: Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani, Seurat, Miró, Calder, Chagall, Dufy, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, Paul Klee. They’re all there, and it’s astonishing.

My trip ended with a right-on-theriverside lunch, in the middle of Lucerne, at Hotel des Balances, which looks calmly across the Reuss to the lofty 18th-century volutes of the Jesuit Church. The salad this time was radish, lettuce and egg, and simply delicious. The fried gilt-head fish came with gleaming, buttery new potatoes. The wine was crisp, white, fresh and Swiss.

I never knew Switzerland made such good wine. But maybe that’s not so surprising. Until this trip, I hardly knew Switzerland at all.

iTravel by train, h Postcard pretty: bus, boat and cable serrated peaks loom car was effortless above Lake Lucerne

iHigh tech: SBB is ‘the Matterhorn of apps’