Going Euro: Switzerland by Train

The true miracle of Swiss workmanship isn't watches or nonlethal army knives but trains-trains connecting the country's airports to its cities, its cities to its towns, its towns to its villages, and its villages to its ski slopes. The trains cross 6,700-foot passes, push through four-mile-long tunnels. And they always run on time. Hop on board at the Zurich airport, and you can ride the rails straight to Switzerland's steepest and most expansive skiing: from flashy Zermatt to the powder haven of Andermatt to precipitous, glaciated Engelberg. The second leg of your Alpine loop is on the panoramic Glacier Express-"the slowest fast train in the world"-which passes over precisely 291 bridges and through no fewer than 91 tunnels as it chugs through the pastoral wonderland that is southeastern Switzerland.