TOUR HIGHLIGHTS
9 nights in centrally located hotels in Milan, Como, and Swiss Alpine villages
Day trip to the walled medieval hill town of Bergamo
Private boat tour on Lake Como visiting Varenna and the gardens of Villa Carlotta
Al Fresco dinner overlooking the lake from Tremezzo
A unique, special tour around Lake Como (surprise)
Lunch at a grotto in the Valle di Muggio, Switzerland's southernmost valley
A full free day to hike and wander, no itinerary attached
Private coach and the Bernina Express, 1st class seats, the glass-roofed train over the Bernina Pass
Carriage ride into the car-free Val Fex, Swiss Alps
Time for hiking and exploring
A few surprises along the way we're not giving away years
TOUR PRICE $5495.00 per person (double occupancy)
There are parts of Europe where the borders feel theoretical. Northern Italy is one of them. Palm trees and lemon trees cling to the lakes while snow gathers on mountains that seem impossibly close, and somewhere beyond them Switzerland is already beginning, first in the roofs, then in the food, then in the clean cold air of the high valleys. For ten days we follow that gradual shift north, from Milan's stone and shadow to the deep blue of Como, through villages where Italy and Switzerland have spent centuries borrowing from one another, and finally over the Bernina Pass into the Engadin, where glaciers hang above dark forests and the evenings arrive with the smell of woodsmoke.
This is not a journey concerned with collecting places. It is interested in what happens between them. A train climbing slowly enough that you can watch vineyards disappear beneath the snow line. Lunch at a table where the cheese comes from the valley around you. A lake after everyone else has gone in for dinner. The hush that falls over a railway carriage when a glacier appears outside the window. We have left room for those moments deliberately, for long meals, wandering afternoons, changing weather, and the possibility that somewhere between Italy and Switzerland you may remember how good it feels to travel without always asking what comes next.
Ten days, nine nights, two countries, one mountain pass, and very little rushing in between. This isn't a trip built to change you. It's built for encounter, for the slow work of noticing what's already there, the way a place can hold you if you let it, the stillness that arrives after you finally stop looking for it.
10 spots
TRIP OVERVIEW
TRIP PRICE: $5495.00 per person
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Beautiful, centrally located accommodations double occupancy; $1599.00 Single supplement fee (limited single rooms)
Most meals (9 Breakfast, 6 Dinners)
Food and wine tastings throughout the tour
Sudden Journeys Tour Director
A small, friendly group of 10 people
All ground transportation
All sightseeing, events, and visits as noted in the itinerary
All entrance fees, service charges, and standard taxes
Coach Driver, local guides and restaurant gratuities
Special dinner and welcome drinks
Custom-designed gifts for your travels
Fine print: You are responsible for the cost of your drinks and free-time sightseeing. See our Tour Conditions for important details regarding everything listed above.
Arrival Airport: Milan, Italy (MXP)
Departure Airport: Zurich (ZRH); tour ends in Sils Maria. You can choose to take the train to Zurich OR return to Milan by train.
Note: The itinerary is descriptive, not definitive, and is subject to change. There also may be modifications due to weather, restoration works taking place are historic sites, and availability of local activities and guides.
ACCOMMODATIONS
TWO NIGHTS IN MILAN
Your hotel sits in a nineteenth-century building steps from the Duomo, its rooms done up with bespoke designer furniture and a vintage, home-like warmth rather than the usual boutique-hotel gloss. Rain showers, a minibar, and a genuinely central address make it an easy first two nights in the city.
THREE NIGHTS IN LAKE COMO
This lake-view hotel brings the brand's playful, design-forward energy to the lakefront, with warm-colored rooms, a rooftop pool looking out over the Como mountains, and a restaurant built for sharing plates and long dinners
TWO NIGHTS IN POSCHIAVO, SWITZERLAND
This hotel occupies a seventeenth-century palazzo on Poschiavo's village square, in the same family's care since 1848. The Room of the Sibyls, its historic dining room, still holds twelve centuries-old portraits, and every room has been thoughtfully refurbished without losing the building's original character.
TWO NIGHTS IN SILS MARIA
This gorgeous hotel occupies a restored sixteenth-century house with cozy, mature interiors. A boutique hotel with only a handful of rooms, a restaurant rooted in Northern Italian and Swiss mountain cooking, and an art collection woven through the building itself.
TOUR LEADER: KYLE CAMPBELL
FOUNDER OF SUDDEN JOURNEYS
Kyle bought a one-way ticket to Florence at twenty-four and never quite came all the way home. What began as a year studying Italian turned into twenty-seven years of returning, again and again, until the country stopped being a place she visited and became a place that held a piece of her. She's spent her career since leading travelers through Italy and beyond, but this tour is built from her own address book, not a guidebook. These aren't stops she researched, they're rooms she's already sat in. Having lived inside Italy rather than just passed through it, Kyle has seen the country from angles most visitors never get close to, the version locals keep for people they trust. After leading thousands of travelers across Europe over more than two decades, she knows exactly which moments make a trip stay with you long after the suitcase is unpacked. This one, more than any other on her calendar, is personal.
DAY ONE Milan | Arrival
Milan keeps its secrets close to the surface. Walk under the Galleria at the hour when the light turns copper and the arcade seems to hold its breath, and the city stops being just marble and traffic. It makes its case in smaller currency, a plate of saffron risotto, a tram bell, the grey-gold hour when the light hits the Duomo. Our journey begins here. Arrive by early afternoon and settle in before we set out together on foot, tracing the streets between the Duomo and the Navigli canals. As evening falls we share our first meal as a group at a milanese trattoria, where its a local only vibe.
Arrive by 1:00pm at the centrally located hotel
Central walking tour of Milan
Welcome drinks and dinner milanese trattoria
Easy walking: 1–3 miles on level city streets. Sleep in Milan.
DAY TWO Bergamo | A City Stacked in Two
We leave the city behind for a day trip to Bergamo, a walled hill town built in two layers, the modern city below and the medieval Città Alta above, reached by a funicular that has carried travelers up through the Venetian walls for more than a century. We wander the cobbled lanes of Piazza Vecchia, stop for a long lunch, and taste stracciatella where it was invented, before letting the afternoon move at its own pace and returning to Milan for a free evening.
Funicular to Bergamo's Città Alta
Walk the Venetian walls
Lunch in Bergamo, with a taste of stracciatella
Free evening in Milan
Moderate walking: 3–5 miles with some inclines and stairs. Train: 50 minutes each way. Sleep in Milan.
DAY THREE | Lake Como
This morning we say goodbye to Milan and travel north to Lake Como, the first of two lakes on this journey. We settle into the hotel before climbing the funicular to Brunate, a hillside village with a view built for lingering, and toast the evening with drinks as the light turns gold over the water.
Train to Lake Como
Funicular to Brunate, sunset drinks overlooking Lake Como
Dinner together
Easy walking: 1–3 miles with one funicular climb. Train: under an hour. Sleep on Lake Como.
DAY FOUR Lake Como
A private boat takes on a tour around the lake with a first stop to Varenna. Then on to the gardens of Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo, where Canova's sculptures share the grounds with camellias and citrus trees older than the villa itself. We end the day a short walk from the villa for dinner, a family-run restaurant with a terrace built for watching the light change over the water.
Private boat tour on Lake Como
Visit Varenna
Explore Villa Carlotta and its gardens
Al fresco dinner on the lake
Easy walking: 1–3 miles, mostly flat with some garden stairs. Boat: half day. Sleep on Lake Como.
DAY FIVE Lake Como | Free Day
For anyone who'd rather have an unhurried day in Como. You can go for a hike, take the public ferry to another village, enjoy exploring Como or just enjoy a day of no plans. The evening is left open, together or on your own.
Free day in Como
Dinner, your choice
Free day. Sleep on Lake Como.
DAY SIX To Poschiavo | Crossing Into Switzerland
We leave Como behind today and climb into the Valle di Muggio, the southernmost valley in all of Switzerland. Nine villages: Bruzella, Cabbio, Caneggio, Muggio among them, sit scattered across a landscape: dry stone walls holding terraces onto hillsides, cisterns cut into rock, small stone huts called nevère built to keep milk cool. Lunch is at a traditional Ticinese grotto and what arrives at the table isn't decoration: it's inheritance. You’ll sample Zincarlin, a cheese made almost nowhere else, cured meats, polenta ground from corn at a watermill in Bruzella. The food tastes the way it does because the rock and the isolation left people no other choice, and that necessity, carried forward for centuries and now simply called a good lunch, is the whole reason this valley belongs on the route at all. From here we continue on a stunning drive by private coach to Poschiavo. Arriving by evening to settle into your seventeenth-century palazzo on the village square, unmistakably Swiss.
Drive into the Valle di Muggio
Ticinese Grotto lunch: Zincarlin, cured meats, watermill-ground polenta
On to Poschiavo, settle into hotel
Dinner together
Easy walking. Mostly a driving day, with a long lunch along the way. Sleep in Poschiavo.
Easy walking: 1–3 miles. COACH: 3-4 HOURS. Sleep in POSCHIAVO.
DAY SEVEN Poschiavo
After yesterday's driving, today asks nothing of you at all. Walk the Via dei Palazzi, where Poschiavini who made their fortunes abroad came home and built Venetian-style villas to prove it, wander down to Lake Poschiavo, or do nothing in particular and let the village set the pace instead. For anyone who wants a little more, a short train ride up to Alp Grüm delivers glacier views without asking for a single step uphill. Dinner together on the square closes the day.
Free morning: Via dei Palazzi, Lake Poschiavo, hiking, or nothing at all
Optional: Alp Grüm by train
Dinner on your own
Free day, entirely optional pacing. Sleep in Poschiavo..
DAY EIGHT The Bernina Express | The Glass Roof
This is the day the whole trip has been building toward. A private coach carries us to Tirano, with time for a stop along the way, before we board the Bernina Express. A train with a glass roof that climbs over the Bernina Pass through some of the most dramatic scenery in the Alps. Glaciers, hairpin viaducts, and high mountain lakes pass close enough to touch. We arrive deep in The Swiss Alps by evening and share our first dinner in the village of Sils Maria.
Private coach to Tirano
The Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass, 1st class tickets
Arrival in the Engadin
Dinner in the village
Mostly seated. One coach transfer, one train journey. Sleep in the Engadin.
DAY NINE The Swiss Alps | A Valley With No Cars
Our final full day begins with a carriage ride into Val Fex, a car-free valley reached only by horse-drawn carriage from the village square, where the road simply ends at a glacier. The afternoon is yours to spend as you like, a walk along Lake Sils, a quiet hour at the hotel, or the short drive over the Maloja Pass to look down into Italy one more time. Tonight we gather for a special farewell feast together before the journey comes to a close.
Carriage ride into Val Fex
Maloja Pass viewpoint
Free afternoon
Farewell dinner
Easy walking: 1–3 miles, with option for more. Carriage ride included. Sleep in the Engadin.
DAY TEN Departure
After breakfast we say our goodbyes. You can travel by train to Zurich via Chur north through mountains that gives way slowly to the lower hills of central Switzerland. Or take the train back to Milan. Lastly you can stay on exploring more of Switzerland.
MORE TOUR INFORMATION
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For anyone who'd rather move slowly through a small handful of places than rush through a long list of them. For anyone who loves lakes, mountains, villages, train rides, long dinners, and a day with nothing written on it at all.
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Full days with room to breathe. Mornings are usually structured around a guided visit, tasting, or walk, afternoons and evenings loosen up, and two full days are left entirely open. This isn't a trip where you're back on the bus every ninety minutes
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Each hotel reflects the place it's in, playful and warm on Lake Como, storied in Milan and Poschiavo, quietly filled with art in the Engadin. You'll be well looked after everywhere we stay.
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This tour is about exploring Italy and Switzerland through the culture of food. Most of the activities and events over the first few days focus on food. You can expect big meals and snacks along the way.
Many of the meals revolve around local food traditions, including meat and almost always cheese and pasta.
If you are a vegetarian, lactose intolerant, or gluten-free, then this is probably not the tour for you.
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Gently paced throughout. Most walking is easy to moderate, on city streets, garden paths, and village lanes, with one carriage ride into Val Fex rather than a hike. Day Five's Fiat tour is fully seated, and can be traded for an open day in Como instead.
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Almost never. Solo travelers make up a meaningful share of every group Kyle leads, and the trip is built around shared meals and shared walks specifically so nobody spends the week on their own unless they want to.
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Plan to land in Milan by morning or early afternoon on Day One. The journey ends neat St Moritz on Day Ten. You can take the train to Zurich or Milan as a departure city.
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No. Kyle does, and so does every guide and host you'll meet along the way. Bring curiosity, not a phrasebook.description
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