hi, i am trying to travel from paris to bern (switzerland) on may 28, and was wondering what the cheapest way is?

i used the sbb.ch and sncf websites and looks like the trains cost (2nd class) 90 Euro (according to sncf site) and 134 Swiss Francs (an email quote from a sbb representative).... I think those trains are TGV or a combination of TGV and some other trains....
Is there a way to get a cheaper train ticket? Perhaps one not using TGV? How do I find this?

I am going to spend a day in Bern, then take a train to Lucerne and spend 1 or 2 days there, and then take a train to Basel and from there fly back to Paris. Do I need to buy my rail tickets while i'm here in the US, or when I get to Europe?
Thanks for your help.

You can take regional trains from Paris Est to Bern via Basel. The SNCF site shows a price of E78.30 for the 07:55 departure and E75.30 for the 15:15 departure. Unless you can find discount tickets online, it will be cheaper for you to buy regular point-to-point tickets in Europe than booking them from the US.

TimS,
Thanks for the info.
How did you know to choose Paris East as the station to leave from to get a cheaper fare going to Bern? I noticed that that route seems to be with 'coral', so maybe its cheaper b/c of no TGV.

So you think for the 07:55 departure it would be cheaper than 78.3 Euro if I bought it in Paris? And is it possible to buy the ticket for May 28 say a day or two before when I'm in Paris (seats will still be available for a Sun, May 28 train from Paris)?

Thanks for your help.

You can go to any train station in France or any SNCF boutique at any time and purchase rail tickets for any destination.

If you know the direction you're train is headed from Paris, it's usually easy to figure out which rail station trains are leaving from. Trains to the southeast leave from Gare to Lyon; to the southwest, from Gare Montparnasse or Austerlitz, trains due east from the Gare de l'Est, etc...

RailEurope lists some cheap book early fares Paris-Geneva for around $50 i believe (14 day adv) and then you could go onto Bern probably for $30 or so. You could also check the French car-sharing program where you pay half the gas of a driver going Paris-Bern - chose a small size car, however. This you can find on the Internet. However this could be more than the train.

railtrav7 - When I'm looking for routes, I always start with www.bahn.de, the German naiional rail site that has timetables for most of Europe. I do both a "standard" search and a "without ICE" search to get all possibilities for fast trains and regional trains. Then I go to the national rail site for the country in which the journey starts (SNCF in your case) to get prices. The SNCF site showed both TGV and regional trains for Paris-Bern.

Since I didn't find any advance online-only discount fares on your route, I believe the prices I quoted upstream will be the same as you will find when you get to France. You should have no problem if you book a day or two ahead.