Best way to travel from French riviera to lake Como
 

I have read all the wonderful advices on this forum and am very confused about getting from Nice to Italy. Can someone tell me which is the best mode of travel and which site has the cheapest tickets? We do not mind 2 class.

Also from Italy we plan to go to Switzerland. We are planning to get the Swiss fare card which has the kids under 16 free. I would like to pay for the town closest to Italy and hope that the Swiss card will take us to the closest town in Switzerland. Thanks for these great advises and your time.

You will probably have to buy a ticket for the part of the trip in France (Nice to Ventimiglia), and then buy the Italian part of the ticket (Ventimiglia to Como or Varenna-Esino).

Here's the official Italian railroad site:

http://www.fsitaliane.it/homepage_en.html

Can you please tell me the train time between both?

You can buy your ticket in Nice (no need to buy one in Italy for the Italian part). The journey takes between 6 and 7 hours depending on train with change in Ventimiglia and Milano Centrale station.
See www.tgv-europe.com for timetable.