European apartments usually have several important differences compared with similar apartments in the United States.

• Towels and linens are provided. Fresh towels are provided to you halfway through your 2-week stay. It is not a Swiss custom to change linens as often as we Americans do, but you may pay your landlady for a change of linens if you do not want to become Swiss in this matter. Maid service is not available in Untour apartments.

• Reading lamps leave a lot to be desired in Switzerland. The Swiss do not customarily read in bed,. More likely, they read at the kitchen table or dining room table, so do not expect the best reading lamps in the bedroom. We keep trying to get our Swiss landlords to install better reading lamps in their apartments, but if you like to read in bed, you may want to bring a small battery-powered reading lamp like those sold in bookstores everywhere in the States.

• Furnishings vary widely, from rustic too modern. Most, but not all of our apartments are in or adjacent to the host’s home. Many of our apartments are furnished with family possessions. This gives a very different feeling than a typical "vacation rental" property in the States, often warmer and more homey, with all the pluses and minuses that "warm and homey" imply.

• The Swiss don’t use window screens despite the fact that, in this land of cows, there are flies in abundance during certain times of year. Swiss landladies need access to their window boxes to water their marvelous geraniums.

• A well-equipped vacation rental in the States differs from a Swiss one. Some things you should not expect in your Swiss ‘home’ include: full-size refrigerators with large freezer units, wool blankets, percale sheets and foam pillows. Instead, duvets are the standard bed covering in Switzerland year round (temperatures usually drop at night), pillows are often feather, and sheets cotton. In the kitchen, refrigerators are more modest sized, and freezer units often downright tiny. Microwaves are still rare, and toasters are often not standard equipment (for the delightful reason that most Swiss bread is so delicious that people prefer to eat it fresh from the loaf rather than toasting it.)

• Only few of our Swiss apartments have washing machines. In most other cases, the hosts have agreed to wash your laundry (for a modest fee). Dryers are not common at all in Switzerland, so be prepared to hang your wet laundry outside to dry.