- When:
- June to July (one month)
- Base:
- Crans-Montana
- Pace:
- slow travel, lots of walking, cooking at the Airbnb and packed lunches
- Getting around:
- mostly on foot, plus trains and buses for day trips
What’s in this Crans-Montana section
- Crans-Montana Essentials: what worked, what did not, and what we would do differently for another month here.
- Crans-Montana Day Trips: train-and-bus days out when you want a change of scenery without hiring a car.
If you are planning a longer stay, we hope this saves you a bit of trial and error. If you are only here for a week or a weekend, we still think it helps.
Crans-Montana, as we found it
A cyclist was sitting on the floor at a bus stop, looking completely exhausted, with his bike beside him.
We had just arrived in Switzerland and were on our first bus ride from Sierre/Siders up to Crans-Montana. Halfway up the mountain, the bus pulled in and his face lit up, just slightly, with relief. He got on through the back door, laid his bike down on the floor and had a few words with the driver. He looked too tired to position the bike properly. Too tired, perhaps, to care.
It was such a small scene, but it stayed with us.
Over the month, we started to see how beautifully public transport and outdoor life are woven together in Switzerland. Bikes went on buses, trains, cable cars and funiculars as naturally as people did. Hikers used whatever transport they needed to reach the start of the trail. Children went on school trips by train and bus. Cyclists who had clearly emptied the tank could simply let the system carry them home.
As we mentioned in our Crans-Montana Essentials, we did not choose Crans-Montana after months of perfect research.
Crans-Montana chose us.
We knew almost nothing about it before we went, apart from one important detail: there was regular public transport down to Sierre/Siders, and from there we could connect to the wider Swiss rail network. That was enough for us to take a chance.
Crans-Montana is a French-speaking mountain town and year-round alpine resort in Valais, sitting high above the Rhône valley. It is known for skiing, mountain biking, hiking, golf, and events such as the Omega European Masters and major alpine ski races.
Crans-Montana was bigger than we expected and felt more like two connected centres than one single town. Montana felt more practical for everyday life, with the station, buses, supermarkets and small shops close at hand. Crans felt more polished and resort-like, with smarter shops, golf courses, pretty lakes and a more high-end atmosphere.
The feeling of being there was unique and interesting.
One minute, we were in Aldi comparing cheese prices and planning what to cook for dinner. The next, we were walking around a lake with a mountain backdrop, passing people playing golf, watching paragliders drift across the valley, and feeling as if time had quietly become irrelevant.
Being around 1,500 metres above sea level gave ordinary days a different texture. The view was not something we had to go and find. It was just there. Morning light on the mountains. Clouds changing shape. Thunderstorms gathering in the distance. The same peaks looking different every hour.
Sometimes, staring at the mountains became the activity.
"Oh, a paraglider."
"Oh, another one."
In the first week, we watched them from the balcony with full tourist excitement. By the final week, we just noticed them with quieter joy and carried on with whatever we were doing. That felt like a small sign that Crans-Montana had become a base rather than a place we were simply visiting.
Of course, the month did not go exactly to plan.
After our hike to the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge near Randa, one of us had a pretty bad back injury flare-up, which meant we could not hike as much as we had hoped. We were disappointed. But that is also part of longer travel. Bodies have opinions. Plans change. So the trip adjusted.
Some days became local walks, grocery runs, balcony meals and recovery. Some became long train days to Bern, Thun, Spiez, Basel, Zurich, Lausanne, Geneva, Lucerne, Lauterbrunnen and Zermatt. Most started with either the bus or the funicular down to Sierre/Siders, then the Swiss rail network carried us somewhere that felt almost absurdly reachable from a mountain base.
The longer we stayed, the more we realised it was not just Switzerland’s jaw-dropping landscapes that stayed with us. It was the little things too.
The water fountains. Refreshing mountain water from beautifully kept public fountains. We never stopped appreciating them.
The language habits. Bonjour. Merci. Au revoir. Said at bus doors, supermarket tills and shops, with no real certainty that our pronunciation was any good, but enough optimism to keep trying.
Grocery. Expensive, yes, but not always as shocking as we expected, partly because the UK has spent the last few years trying very hard to become Switzerland without the mountains and train system. The locally grown vegetables, especially the tomatoes and potatoes, were lovely. Not to mention the dairy products and cheese. Oh, and of course, the chocolate!
The trains. Some even had children’s carriages with toys, story books and a play area.
And the public transport itself. Not just mostly clean trains and neat timetables, but the way it folded into everyday life. Schoolchildren on trips. Bikes carried home. Boats crossing lakes. Cable cars lifting people into the mountains. Funiculars connecting valley towns to places that would otherwise feel cut off.
Then there was the fondue.
We tried making this Swiss signature in the apartment, imagining a very atmospheric Swiss balcony meal overlooking the mountains. A simple plan. Cheese, wine, bread, view. How hard could it be?
Quite hard, apparently.
Nearly an hour later, the cheese still had not emulsified properly. The dream of elegant balcony fondue turned into a standing-around-the-kitchen situation, with us trying to rescue a stringy pot of melted dairy through stirring, hope and mild denial.
Not exactly the imagined version.
Probably more memorable.
At times, looking back, our month in Crans-Montana still feels a little surreal. We arrived knowing almost nothing about it, and left with a whole set of routines, jokes, routes, lessons, mistakes and small attachments.
It was not the Switzerland we had carefully planned in detail.
It was the Switzerland we slowly learned how to live in.