Hello

How long of a drive is it if we drive from Saltzburg thru Switzerland to (almost) the border of France. Then we are taking a train to Nice.

Please advise. Michelle

If you are planing any driving trip in/through Europe, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with www.viamichelin.com or www.mappy.com for route advice, estimates of distances, driving time and the like.

Best wishes,

Rex

You will also need to buy a good paper map or road atlas - suggest Michelin.

And don't forget: Picking up a car in Austria and dropping it off in Switzerland will incur a stiff drop-off charge. (Check AutoEurope for that.) There is no charge if you pick up and drop off the car in the same country. Thus, if you are most interested in the scenery of Austria, drop off the car in Bregenz (Lake Constance) and take the train from there; if it is Switzerland you want to see, pick up the car in one of the Swiss border towns. Coming from Austria, check out Chur or St. Gallen.

I have driven the route, but in parts.
My guess is that the car trip would take you about 9 hours.

Also, there is a charge for dropping a car in a different country, even if with the same agency.

If you opt for the train, please note that right now the best route is via Munich because the Austrian rail service is completing track replacement in the vicinity of Bludenz. The repairs result in leaving the train and riding a bus for a few miles. The estimated delay is 30 minutes.

The repairs should be completed by early December. Assuming you are traveling after that, the train schedule looks something like this:

Leave Salzburg at 10:31 on the Maria Theresia and arrive in Zürich at
16:20. You could change for Geneve (for example) and arrive there at 19:15.
Total time: 8:44.

There is an earlier train leaving Salzburg at 6:22 for Zürich. This train is known as the Sisi (or more properly, the KAISERIN ELISABETH).

The upside of a train trip is that you don't have to plan the route and drive it yourself. The downside is that you are confined to the train.

Depending on the number of people in the traveling group, the train may or may not cost more than the car drop fee.

If you wanted to use both car and train for the trip, you could travel by car to Sargans, Buchs or Feldkirch (depending on the location of a car rental office), drop the car, and continue by train. Or pick up a car in Zürich. There is an Avis office near the train station.

Once an Austrian train enters Switzerland, it does not stop until Zürich.

"Once an Austrian train enters Switzerland, it does not stop until it reaches Zurich"

????

Are you speaking generally, or are you referring to recent events resulting from the Bludenz work?

I've taken the Vienna-Salzburg-Zurich train twice. I beileve both times it was an Austrian train, and it made stops in Buchs, among others.

Are you referring to recent events, p

I missed that one about the train stops. There are also trains from Feldkirch to Zürich which stop in Sargans, which is also just on the Swiss side of the border.

I was thinking of the main trains not making any stops in Switzerland, but even so, Buchs is just over the line into Switzerland. First statement was not accurate.

The comments on the flood damage and interruption of the rail journey are accurate according to the timetables.
Repair work will continue until early December.

If I read the Austrian web site correctly, passengers will ride shuttle buses over the section from Landeck-Zams to Bludenz. The buses will be wating in Bludenz. Thereby, the connecting train ÖBB - EC 164 to Zürich will be about 20 to 30 minutes behind schedule.

Because of the storms and flooding in August, 2005, the section of the rail line in Arlberg will be disrupted until early December.

Here is the German so you can check my English if you wish.

(Landeck-Zams - Bludenz)
Dieser Zug wird auf diesem Abschnitt mit Autobussen geführt. Die Shuttlebusse aus Landeck werden in Bludenz abgewartet, der Anschlusszug ÖBB-EC 164 nach Zürich wird dadurch um ca. 20-30 Minuten verspätet. Aufgrund der Unwetter/Überschwemmungen aus August 2005 ist die Bahnstrecke über den Arlberg bis Anfang Dezember 2005 unterbrochen.

If you get a deal on a one-way rental that doesn't cost the earth, ask about the Swiss road-tax "vignette" that needs to be affixed to the windshield. In Austria the equivalent thingie can be bought for shorter periods, but the Swiss only sell it for a full year. You might not want to get stuck with that expense since you only use it for a few days.

The trip Salzburg - Geneve via München should be about 8 hours if you don't stop. Ditto via Innsbruck and Feldkirch - more scenic.

WK