Hi Florat,

That's nice that your parents can come and visit. I'm sure it will be a special trip for them, whatever you plan

I agree with keeping it simple - a week is a very short time and you'll want to maximize value for time/money, minimize stress and of course enjoy the time with your parents.

I agree with all of the Luzern fans. It's a beautiful little city and you can experience so much from there.

Without nailing the itinery down, I would plan to include:

the Geneva -> Lausanne boat tour with shopping for the French feeling.

Luzern - old city tour shopping and the city wall/clock tower (check open times!! It's closed in Winter) and boat ride.
+ either the pilatus golden round tour on the boat, cogwheel train and gondola
or
a trip by train then gondola up Titlis (as suggested above). Titlis is higher (3000m above sea) compared to Pilatus (2000m above sea) so the snow and views up Titlis would be better. (Note that it will be colder up there so get your parents to take a warm jacket). Engelberg, the town near titlis is also a beautiful old town with character.

From what I've heard you have to strike it very lucky to get good conditions up Jungfrau and Zermatt. And it's REALLY expensive.

I would avoid Zürich except for a wander down Bahnhof strasse on the way to/from the airport. It's a pretty enough city and Uetliberg is nice, but you'll get plenty of views in Luzern from the clock tower or the mountains.

The rest I would leave open for sponteneity to either chill or decide at the time to stay at one place longer etc.

I hope you and your folks enjoy the trip either way!

Puddy

__________________
I didn't lose my mind. It was mine to give away - Robbie Williams

If you want a chill out day between all these busy days as somebody else mentioned a boat trip to Rapperswil return on a sunny day is great. Not too much effort just turn up at the boat does it all! I always take a picnic with a couple of bottles of fizz and relax by the lake, just perfect! Mum loves it.

I was at Luzern the other day the lake looked fab with the surrounding mountains , never done a trip on this lake but I think this could be wonderful experience , I will be doing that myself soon.

As for Jungefrau , I was staying in Grindlewald which was great but never made it up there as bad weather at the time. But as somebody else said its pretty dear for the tickets so check out well in advance.

The train journey to Zermatt is amazing but once you get there I found the village rather disappointing.

I can't remember about closing times around easter but also be aware that there could be extra cantonal holidays as well in the cantons you may be visiting.

This is so true about chinese women!! When they think of Europe - it's PARIS!!! lol

I just talked to my dad about Paris and he also thinks my mom REALLY wanna see Paris so I think I will keep it on the agenda for the easter sunday through tuesday...

maybe I can stop by geneva and take the boat trip to Lausanne as suggested as well on the way back from paris to zurich... and stop in geneva...

Also seems like Luzern has a really high vote too! so that's a definite as well! I'll combine it with either Mt Titlis or Mt Pilatus!

i'll continue my research! once my itin is set, i'll update y'all! Thank you so much for all your info! you guys are all so helpful! =)

So the parents already went back home...

as promised - here is what we did!!

Day 1 - parents arrived - lunch at Uetliberg, then short round trip ferry at lake of zurich, walked around zurich... then dinner at Rheinfelder Bierhalle

Day 2 - Luzern - Mt Titlis --> everyone loved it! it was so much fun! wish we had more time up there!! should have gone to the mountain earlier in the day! we went after lunch...

Day 3 - 5 - Paris

Day 6 - Zurich Bahnhofstrasse - Winterthur (for a very very short time period so didn't see much and it was raining hard!) - Rheinfall (parents loved it even have seen the Niagara Falls! took LOTS of pictures) - walked around in Schaffhausen

Day 7 - Konstanz and took the ferry to Meersburg

Day 8 - shopping at migros (bought lots of chocolates and biscuits) - Bern for 3 hours in the afternoon - dinner again at Rheinfelder Bierhalle - then airport

i wanted to bring them to either take the bernina express or go to zermatt after we went to paris but we couldn't get up early enough.... i think they would have loved it!!

thank you for all your advice before! my parents had a great time...very exhuasted at the end but had a great time still...

Thanks a lot for coming back to tell us what you all did. I'm glad it went well and that your parents went home tired but happy.