Hotel Edelweiss, Engelberg, Swiss Alps

The Heart of Switzerland

• spectacular base for a variety of enjoyable Alpine activities • wonderful walking •
• children’s activities and playroom • visit Glacier Park, Lucerne & its lake •

Walking in the mountains

Come to the heart of Switzerland and enjoy fresh mountain air, fantastic views and thrilling days out - choose from boat and cable-car trips, snow-based activities on a glacier, walking, mountain biking and much more. Set in a dramatic amphitheatre of towering peaks, dominated by the hooked shape of Mount Titlis (3,020 metres), Engelberg is a wonderfully laid-back village, with a friendly 3-star hotel to match. Indeed, the Edelweiss is one of the friendliest hotels in our selection, where English-speaking owners Peter and Susanne Kuhn extend a genuine welcome to you and cater very well for families with children of all ages.

Hotel Edelweiss

The Hotel Edelweiss

Nights: 7
Meals: 7 breakfasts, 7 dinners

This Art Nouveau hotel affords wide views of the mountains that frame the village. Bedrooms are equipped with a bath or a shower, telephone, radio, hairdryer and cable television. Our prices are based on a superior room, which sleeps four. For more space, upgrade to one of the family apartments which sleep up to five and consist of two bedrooms (one usually with bunk beds), one bathroom and a balcony. Alternatively, smaller families may prefer to book a standard room sleeping three.

Besides spacious lounges and a bar, the hotel offers a sauna, a solarium and an outdoor hot tub with wonderful mountain views (child restrictions apply). The excellent children’s facilities include a free kindergarten for over threes between 5pm and 9pm, two playrooms, Nintendo games consoles, table tennis, table football, billiards and a garden with swings and a slide. The restaurant offers a children’s menu and an optional early dinner sitting at the Children’s Table at 6.30pm if your family wishes to dine separately.

With a weekly programme of events at the hotel, there is always plenty going on, involving anything from kayaking trips and trampolining to barbecue dinners.

The village:

Engelberg - a 5-minute walk downhill from the hotel - boasts shops, cafés and restaurants.

Great days out:

Mount Titlis Glacier Park
A trip to the Mount Titlis Glacier Park on the slopes of the area’s highest peak involves taking the world’s first revolving cable car. The Park is a year-round playground of snow and ice. Visit the Glacier Cave, take a glacier walk with an experienced guide, ride on the ice-flyer chair lift over the crevasses or try a variety of thrilling ways to glide down the glacier, from snow tubing (sitting in a giant inflatable tyre) to tobogganing. What’s more, the re-ascent is via the effortless Magic Carpet moving walkway so you can slide down as many times as you like!

Lake Lucerne

Lucerne
The handsome Renaissance town of Lucerne is just an hour by train. You can cross its famous bridge - the Kapellbrücke, the oldest wooden bridge in Europe - and visit the Verkershaus, a superb museum devoted to transport with an IMAX screen, a planetarium and interactive displays such as driving a locomotive.

Take the train or boat
While you are there, why not take a boat trip across the lake of the same name and get a different perspective of the mountains? Alternatively, the steam railway journey up nearby Mount Rigi is justly popular, and the fact that Swiss transport works like clockwork means that it is a joy to travel by boat and train. Catch a train to Lucerne, take a boat to Vitznau and then ride on the cog railway up to Rigi Kulm. On the return journey you can descend by cable car to Weggis and then catch the boat back to Lucerne for a truly memorable day trip!

Cheese Museum
For something very different, it is worth visiting the Schaukaserei Kloster cheese museum within Engelberg's monastery (entrance is free). Here you can watch all stages of cheese production, from the warming of the milk through to the growing of the mould, then sample some of the finished cheese.

So that you can get the most out of your holiday, prices include a travel pass allowing adults two days of free travel and a 50% discount on the other five days (children under 16 travel free when accompanied by a parent).

Walking:

With 360 kilometres of waymarked trails, this is a superb base for walking - choose from gentle strolls along the valley or, for the more energetic, use the cable cars and chairlifts to access beautiful alpine pastures or some excellent high-level routes with magnificent views. We provide notes for a walk (10.5km, 3.5hrs) that starts with a gondola ride to the lake of Trubsee half-way up the slopes of Mount Titlis then follows a panoramic botanical trail around the lake's shores before descending back to the village. You can hop on and off the gondola to avoid the steepest parts of the descent.

Rigi Cog Railway

ther activities

Mountain biking is a popular activity here (you can hire bikes independently or join a guided bike ride), and if you fancy trying your hand at climbing, abseiling, canoeing or Nordic walking, these can all be arranged locally. The local tourist office is excellent, arranging a weekly programme of events. Depending on when you are travelling, these may include an introduction to Nordic walking, a flying fox course (aerial assault course involving rope bridges etc), guided walks, mule trekking, an introduction to woodcarving, kayaking and river rafting, and even llama trekking! Your Guest Pass gives a wide range of discounts, including at the village's excellent indoor and outdoor pool complex. Be sure not to miss the summer toboggan run!

Prices & travel 2009:

Self-drive includes: P&O Ferries Dover-Calais return Channel crossing for your party and one car. Driving time from Calais: 8h15
Discovery Price includes: return transfers Zurich-Engelberg by rail (3h) and local transfer (0h05), plus travel pass allowing adults two days of free travel and a 50% discount on the other five days (children under 16 travel free when accompanied by a parent)
Recommended airport: Zurich
Latest flight arrival time: 1600
Earliest flight departure time: 1300
Book your flights through us and we’ll find the best route and times to suit you
Start: any day

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