Luzern to Lake Como stop!!!!!! Nightmare!!!!
 

If Keith and I go back to Wengen this summer and we wanted to travel from Luzern to Lake Como by train, where would be an interest town to stop for an overnight along the way?

I am a huge Patricia Highsmith fan and I know she lived in the Ticino.

Sorry if I am cloudy but am on Valium therapy
For Menieres.

Thin

Consider taking the longer but much much more scenic rail/road route via St Moritz (good stopping point) and the fantastic Bernina Pass rail and road route to Tirano, Italy for trains or roads to Lake Como via Varenna- get boat there for Bellagio.

The Bernina Pass route is so so awesome as is this part of Ticino in general. Many folk like to stay in more bucolic Pontresina than in glitzy St Moritz itself.

From Lucerne take a train to nearby Zurich and then via Chur to St Moritz - official Bernina Express trains link Chur to St Moritz/Pontrisina and over the Bernina Pass but local trains run the same route all the time.

For lots of great info on Swiss trains and the Bernina Pass route in particular check out www.swisstravelsystem.com; www.ricksteves.com and http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id3.html (on this page scroll down to bottom for info on Bernina Pass route between Switzerland and Italy.

The Bernina Pass train is the only train to cross the Alsnorth to south - others burrow far under the Alps and this Top of the World scenery to me is the finest scenic train route in all of Europe.

Lugano is the obvious choice. You could also take a little detour from Bellinzona to Locarno. Lugano is on Lake Lugano, Locarno on Lago Maggiore.

I haven't been to Lugano myself, others like it. In fact, you can go to Lake Como by bus from Lugano to Menaggio.

Locarno made a nice stop. There's a funicular/gondola/skilift ride you can do from the middle of town; it goes high up in the mountains with great views over the lake. There's also the boat trip to the Borromean Islands, and the postal bus back into the Val Verzasca. We stayed for several days, having family in the area.

Where on the lake are you headed? Bellagio/Menaggio/Varenna or the city of Como itself or somewhere else?

Lugano and Locarno are very similar to Como, and quite close, so IMHO they are not really worth a stop if your final destination is Como. If you want an original detour, get out of your train at Göschenen, just before entering the Gotthard tunnel. Exit the railway station and a tiny train will be waiting the connection and bringing you, through a scenic gorge, to Andermatt, a village in the middle of the Gotthard mountains with spectacular landscape, where you can spend your night.

What if I take the St. Gotthard Pass from Luzern to Bellinzona?

Would that be interesting?

Thin

That seems very out of the way to go all the way to St. Moritz/Pontrasina to get to Lake Como, Pal.

Thin

Yes it is but I did not know how much time you had.

The Gotthard Pass route is a very scenic mainline rail route - that is it is for the next few years until the new Gotthard Rail Tunnel burrows under all of today's scintillating Alpine scenery.

A highlight of the ride from Arth-Goldau (coming from Lucerne you go first via Arth-Goldau, changing sometimes there - anyway when the train goes by the Weiss Kirche in Weissen it famously does some circles inside and out of a mountain and you pass the same exact church three times - each time at a different altitude as the train climbs towards today's Simplon Tunnel, where twice again it does loopy-loops circling down this time in altitude.

The new tunnel under construction goes completely in tunnel under all that wondrous scenery but of course will go much faster.

Bellinzona is a pretty area - neat castles on rocky outcroppings.

And it is similarly

https://www.google.com/search?q=gott...=1600&bih=1075

Gotthard rail line pix - including of the new tunnel being bored but mainly of scenes that most travelers in the future will never see as they train burrows under most of them!

asps, the OP is particularly interested in staying in Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland.

IMHO TIcino is very similar to Lake Como area and even more expensive, so it is not worth a stop if the final destination is Lake Como. - And I am telling it myself, next monday I will be in Lugano....

That town of Andermatt looks charming.

Thank you for the advice.

Thin

I am not a fan of Andermatt.

Have you thought about Disentis? You could take the train via Andermatt - Oberalp pass. From Disentis go by bus over the Lukmanier/Lucomagno pass, very beautiful and off the beaten path. Disentis has a nice Baroque monastery, worth a look.

I am a fan of Disentis as well. The train from Andermatt to Disentis is incredible in good weather. But I am afraid that the Lukmanier pass has limited public transportation; in summer there are only a couple of services per day with a transfer between buses at the pass, I do not know in winter. In order to get from Disentis to Ticino you have either to backtrack to Andermatt, or go on to Thusis or Chur and transfer to a bus to Bellinzona.

An itinerary Göschenen-Andermatt-Disentis-Thusis-Bellinzona with a stopover in Disentis would have dramatic landscapes, but of course it makes sense only in good weather.

Another dramatic landscape could be a stopover in Andermatt and a bus over the Gotthard pass; possible only in summer. The descent from the pass to Airolo looks like landing an airplane (there is even an airstrip at the bottom of the valley!). But I do not know how frequent are bus services over the pass.

Thin: If you are thinking of visiting Tegna, it is very close to Locarno. Locarno is a nice relaxing place to overnight on the swiss side of Lago Maggiore. There are several direct InterRegio trains from Luzern to Locarno, then you can switch to the local train to Tegna where she lived/died/buried (total time/cost 3 hrs/€29). It takes less than 2 hours to get to Como from Locarno by train via Bellinzona.