Meena404

Hi Everyone,

Hubby and I are planning a trip to Italy in May and want to take a train trip for one or two days to somewhere in Switzerland. Do you have a suggestions on what train goes there and what city to spend time in Lugano? Wengen? somewhere else? Also if you have a hotel suggestion - something that is not too expensive but is clean and nice. Thank you so much for your help.
Meena

ira

Hi M,

Train schedules are at www.trenitalia.com and www.sbb.ch/en/index.htm.

What's your budget?

scatcat

It will take about 4 hours by train to get to Wengen or Zermatt. I don't know if it would be too much time on a train for you and so little time actually there.

bobthenavigator

Luzern !
Look at Hotel des Alpes

kmbp

Take a look at this Cisalpino page to see the train routes from Milan into Switzerland--

http://www.cisalpino.com/go/Destinations

Of course, you'll be able to transfer to any destination you like on the excellent Swiss system but this page may give you some ideas.

swandav2000

Hi Meena404,

I think you have two basic options --

1. Take the train from Milan to Brig, a sweet little town that's surrounded by mountains. From Brig, you can easily reach the car-free villages of Riederalp or Bettmeralp, and from them see the Aletsch Glacier. There are dozens of hiking trails that lead out from town into the mountains.

2. Take the train from Milan to Tirano, then take the Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass to one of the towns of the Upper Engadin (Pontresina, Sils, Silvaplana, St. Moritz). This will entail more travel time, but you probably will love every minute of it! Once in the Engadin, you can take cable cars up to the mountain peaks, go hiking, etc.

You can research these routes easily at the Swiss rail site,

www.rail.ch

I know that most first-timers like to go to the sweet towns of the Berner Oberland (Wengen, etc), but you don't really have that much time. I would really rather get to the closest mountains then spend more time enjoying them.

Have fun!

s

retiredinflorida

I'd recommend the Bernina Express train ride, it is one of the best train rides I've been on.

You'll need to take a TrenItialia train to Tirano and transfer to a RHB Bernina Express to a St Moritz or Chur (or some of the smaller towns enroute).

This is the long way from Milan to someplace in Switzerland, but the Bernina Express is a wonderful train ride.

Ingo

I highly recommend swandav's #2 suggestion. For the trip back to Milan take the Postal bus called Palm Express to Lugano where you can catch the train to Milan.