Zurich sits inside Switzerland's dense rail network and almost every corner of the country is reachable in a day. The Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen, Europe's most voluminous waterfall, are 45 minutes north by train. Lucerne is under an hour south and makes a classic day — lake, old town, Mount Pilatus — as does Bern, the federal capital, about an hour west. Einsiedeln's Benedictine abbey is about an hour by train and draws pilgrims from across the Catholic world; the ski slopes of Hoch Ybrig are reachable by train to Einsiedeln and then a bus up into the mountains, with a combined ticket available at the station.
For mountains, a rail pass and an early start get you to Grindelwald, Interlaken, and the edge of the Jungfrau region by mid-morning. In summer, the small boats on Lake Zürich run up the lakeshore to towns like Rapperswil, which makes for a slower, more scenic half-day out.
