Switzerland
May 6th, 2007, 10:22 AM
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Switzerland
Author: cire3
Date: 01/10/2007, 10:23 pm
My wife desperatly wants to go to Italy. We are thinking of September, she wants the usual suspects, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice. I want something a little less well known, but still city like with great architecture and night life. After a little bit of research I came up with a Zurich-Milan-Florence-Rome itinerary that seems to make us both happy. Does anybody know what the train travel would be like for such an excursion, how long, scenery etc.? Any reccomendations of travel agencies to help plan such a trip? As you can probably tell, I am new to this, neither one of us has been to Europe before.
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Author: Jean
Date: 01/10/2007, 11:03 pm
Putting Zurich in the mix adds a very different time and distance dimension to your itinerary. Would your time in Switzerland be only in Zurich before heading to Italy? If so, would you consider flying between Zurich and Milan? This would save you one very long train ride. Or is the point of adding Zurich the train ride through the Alps?
Many people travel to the "usual suspects" (Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan) because of the relatively short distances between destinations and easy, frequent, non-stop train options.
If your trip is for two weeks or less, I would drop either Zurich or Rome. In any event, I would not drop Venice if you're interested in great architecture.
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Author: swandav2000
Date: 01/11/2007, 02:16 am
Hi cire3,
Just to give you the Swiss rail website, www.rail.ch. You can use the site to plan all your trips in Switzerland and Itay (just for Florence use the Italian spelling of Firenze because there's a Geneva suburb called "Florence"
.
s
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Author: cire3
Date: 01/11/2007, 10:50 am
Jean. Thanks for the response. Part of the reason I picked Zurich was the train ride through the Apls, I had hears that it is only a 3-4 hour ride to Milan. Is that not correct? The other reason is I just wanted to do something different, and visit as many places as possible. Who knows when we will ever get back. With that being said, I do not want to spend the whole trip traveling around either. I want to enjoy my time where ever we end up going. Maybe we just spend the time in Italy for now
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Author: amy_zena
Date: 01/11/2007, 10:57 am
That's correct - the train from Milan to Zurich is anywhere from 3 and a half hours to 4 and a half hours depending on which train you take.
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Author: kialu
Date: 01/12/2007, 02:20 am
I have prepared a list of places, for you,in Italy.
Depending on what you prefer (fashion, entertainment, art, history, summer vacation, food, trend) I have made a note, next to each city, where you can have any of the above.
Supposing you begin visiting Italy from the northern part (near the Swiss border), here is the listing of cities/towns I prefer:
Milan (fashion, entertainment)
Turin (history, art)
Portofino, Rapallo (summer, trendy)
Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Lake Garda (summer)
Genoa (history, summer)
Verona (history)
Venice (history, art)
Parma, Modena, Ravenna, Ferrara (history, food)
Bologna (history, food, entertainment)
Florence (history, art, fashion)
Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Arezzo (history, art)
Forte dei Marmi (summer, entertainment, trendy)
Chianti Region (food)
Perugia, Cortona, Gubbio, Siena , Spoleto (history, food, art)
Rome (history, art, food)
Naples, Caserta (history, art, food)
Capri, Ischia, Sorrento coast, Amalfi coast (summer, food, trendy)
Palermo, Syracuse, Agrigento, Trapani (history, art, food)
Costa Smeralda (summer, entertainment)
Obviously the food is excellent anywhere in Italy, and in any city you walk through history. This is a simple guideline, in order to give you an idea what you can find, depending where you go.
For your hotels, I definitely recommend you to visit the following website: http://www.italyvip.com
For more informations or tips about Italy, you can contact me at: [email protected]
Buon viaggio
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Author: Dukey
Date: 01/12/2007, 04:53 am
What a wonderful "problem" you have!
Be aware there are (at least)TWO different rail routes you can use from Zurich to Milan.
The festest route would probably be from Zurich down through the St. Gotthard Tunnel which is quite scenic.
But if you want to take a little more time and see a lot MORE great scenery you could route yourself down through Lucern and then over the Brunig Pass to Interlaken and on to Spiez, then through the Lotschberg Tunnel and the Rhone Pallisades to Brig and then through the Simplon Tunnel to Domodossola and Milan
OR you could travel from Lucern to Bern and then down to Brig and into Italy.
It all depends on how much time you want to take and how much scenery you want to see.
The Brunig Pass route is wonderful but it would mean several changes along the way; the Zurich-St. Gotthard route would be faster and with fewer, perhaps no, changes.
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Author: Dukey
Date: 01/12/2007, 04:59 am
Oops..just realized there is yet another route:
Zurich to Chur to St Moritz; change for the Bernina Express over the absolutely spectacular Bernina Pass to Tirano in Italy and the train from there to Colico and along the east shore of Lake Como through Varenna to Milan.
Boy, are you lucky!!!
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Author: sharon1306
Date: 01/12/2007, 08:17 am
We've taken the train from Interlaken to Milan with a change of trains at Spiez and Brig. It was a very memorable train journey, and the scenery was pretty decent as well. Check www.rail.ch and http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html for more information on connections.
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Author: cire3
Date: 01/19/2007, 09:37 am
Thanks for the information, everybody. I think we are going to go with the Zurich-Milan-Florence-Rome itinerary. Anybody have any suggesstions of hotels in these cities? I will be without a car, so I will need to be near public transportation and hopefully in the thick of the activity.
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Author: Mimar
Date: 01/19/2007, 11:38 am
Unless I missed it, we still don't know how long your trip is. With limited time, I wouldn't stay in Zurich. Instead take the train from the Zurich airport to Lucerne. Spend a few days there.
The train should be fine for this trip. We Fodorites tend to be obsessive planners and don't rely on travel agents. We can help you with details if you give us a time frame and budget.
Meanwhile for train schedules for all Europe, look at reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en; trains in Italy are at www.trenitalia.it. For hotels www.tripadvisor.com and venere.com.
And you don't need to buy train tickets ahead of time -- unless you're buying a pass, which I doubt would be cost-effective in your case.
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Author: cire3
Date: 01/19/2007, 05:01 pm
Our trip would be about 14 days. I have heard great things about Zurich (perhaps they were wrong), so we were thinking about 4 days in Zurich 3 in milan, 3 in florence, 4 in Rome
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Author: Jean
Date: 01/21/2007, 11:55 pm
I wouldn't spend four days in Zurich and/or three days in Milan. I enjoy both cities, but two well-planned days in each would provide enough time.
Either take one of the longer train route options or add time to Florence/Rome.
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Author: A2
Date: 05/06/2007, 09:25 am
Hi all
We are planning a Switzerland stopover and thought we should cover the following:
2007/06/02: Zurich (14h00) – MT Pilatus (overnight)
2007/06/03: Mt Pilatus – Wengen / (Overnight)
2007/06/04: Wengen – Brig / Eggishorn (overnight in Brig)
2007/06/05: Brig – Domodosola – Lugano (overnight)
2007/06/06: Lugano – Milan (11h00)
We are age 37 & 39, would like to avoid big cities. In short we land @ Zurich 2007/06/02 and need to be in Milan 2007/06/06.
Please advice.
A2
Date: 01/10/2007, 10:23 pm
My wife desperatly wants to go to Italy. We are thinking of September, she wants the usual suspects, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice. I want something a little less well known, but still city like with great architecture and night life. After a little bit of research I came up with a Zurich-Milan-Florence-Rome itinerary that seems to make us both happy. Does anybody know what the train travel would be like for such an excursion, how long, scenery etc.? Any reccomendations of travel agencies to help plan such a trip? As you can probably tell, I am new to this, neither one of us has been to Europe before.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Jean
Date: 01/10/2007, 11:03 pm
Putting Zurich in the mix adds a very different time and distance dimension to your itinerary. Would your time in Switzerland be only in Zurich before heading to Italy? If so, would you consider flying between Zurich and Milan? This would save you one very long train ride. Or is the point of adding Zurich the train ride through the Alps?
Many people travel to the "usual suspects" (Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan) because of the relatively short distances between destinations and easy, frequent, non-stop train options.
If your trip is for two weeks or less, I would drop either Zurich or Rome. In any event, I would not drop Venice if you're interested in great architecture.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: swandav2000
Date: 01/11/2007, 02:16 am
Hi cire3,
Just to give you the Swiss rail website, www.rail.ch. You can use the site to plan all your trips in Switzerland and Itay (just for Florence use the Italian spelling of Firenze because there's a Geneva suburb called "Florence"
.s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: cire3
Date: 01/11/2007, 10:50 am
Jean. Thanks for the response. Part of the reason I picked Zurich was the train ride through the Apls, I had hears that it is only a 3-4 hour ride to Milan. Is that not correct? The other reason is I just wanted to do something different, and visit as many places as possible. Who knows when we will ever get back. With that being said, I do not want to spend the whole trip traveling around either. I want to enjoy my time where ever we end up going. Maybe we just spend the time in Italy for now
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: amy_zena
Date: 01/11/2007, 10:57 am
That's correct - the train from Milan to Zurich is anywhere from 3 and a half hours to 4 and a half hours depending on which train you take.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: kialu
Date: 01/12/2007, 02:20 am
I have prepared a list of places, for you,in Italy.
Depending on what you prefer (fashion, entertainment, art, history, summer vacation, food, trend) I have made a note, next to each city, where you can have any of the above.
Supposing you begin visiting Italy from the northern part (near the Swiss border), here is the listing of cities/towns I prefer:
Milan (fashion, entertainment)
Turin (history, art)
Portofino, Rapallo (summer, trendy)
Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Lake Garda (summer)
Genoa (history, summer)
Verona (history)
Venice (history, art)
Parma, Modena, Ravenna, Ferrara (history, food)
Bologna (history, food, entertainment)
Florence (history, art, fashion)
Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Arezzo (history, art)
Forte dei Marmi (summer, entertainment, trendy)
Chianti Region (food)
Perugia, Cortona, Gubbio, Siena , Spoleto (history, food, art)
Rome (history, art, food)
Naples, Caserta (history, art, food)
Capri, Ischia, Sorrento coast, Amalfi coast (summer, food, trendy)
Palermo, Syracuse, Agrigento, Trapani (history, art, food)
Costa Smeralda (summer, entertainment)
Obviously the food is excellent anywhere in Italy, and in any city you walk through history. This is a simple guideline, in order to give you an idea what you can find, depending where you go.
For your hotels, I definitely recommend you to visit the following website: http://www.italyvip.com
For more informations or tips about Italy, you can contact me at: [email protected]
Buon viaggio
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Dukey
Date: 01/12/2007, 04:53 am
What a wonderful "problem" you have!
Be aware there are (at least)TWO different rail routes you can use from Zurich to Milan.
The festest route would probably be from Zurich down through the St. Gotthard Tunnel which is quite scenic.
But if you want to take a little more time and see a lot MORE great scenery you could route yourself down through Lucern and then over the Brunig Pass to Interlaken and on to Spiez, then through the Lotschberg Tunnel and the Rhone Pallisades to Brig and then through the Simplon Tunnel to Domodossola and Milan
OR you could travel from Lucern to Bern and then down to Brig and into Italy.
It all depends on how much time you want to take and how much scenery you want to see.
The Brunig Pass route is wonderful but it would mean several changes along the way; the Zurich-St. Gotthard route would be faster and with fewer, perhaps no, changes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Dukey
Date: 01/12/2007, 04:59 am
Oops..just realized there is yet another route:
Zurich to Chur to St Moritz; change for the Bernina Express over the absolutely spectacular Bernina Pass to Tirano in Italy and the train from there to Colico and along the east shore of Lake Como through Varenna to Milan.
Boy, are you lucky!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: sharon1306
Date: 01/12/2007, 08:17 am
We've taken the train from Interlaken to Milan with a change of trains at Spiez and Brig. It was a very memorable train journey, and the scenery was pretty decent as well. Check www.rail.ch and http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html for more information on connections.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: cire3
Date: 01/19/2007, 09:37 am
Thanks for the information, everybody. I think we are going to go with the Zurich-Milan-Florence-Rome itinerary. Anybody have any suggesstions of hotels in these cities? I will be without a car, so I will need to be near public transportation and hopefully in the thick of the activity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Mimar
Date: 01/19/2007, 11:38 am
Unless I missed it, we still don't know how long your trip is. With limited time, I wouldn't stay in Zurich. Instead take the train from the Zurich airport to Lucerne. Spend a few days there.
The train should be fine for this trip. We Fodorites tend to be obsessive planners and don't rely on travel agents. We can help you with details if you give us a time frame and budget.
Meanwhile for train schedules for all Europe, look at reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en; trains in Italy are at www.trenitalia.it. For hotels www.tripadvisor.com and venere.com.
And you don't need to buy train tickets ahead of time -- unless you're buying a pass, which I doubt would be cost-effective in your case.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: cire3
Date: 01/19/2007, 05:01 pm
Our trip would be about 14 days. I have heard great things about Zurich (perhaps they were wrong), so we were thinking about 4 days in Zurich 3 in milan, 3 in florence, 4 in Rome
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Jean
Date: 01/21/2007, 11:55 pm
I wouldn't spend four days in Zurich and/or three days in Milan. I enjoy both cities, but two well-planned days in each would provide enough time.
Either take one of the longer train route options or add time to Florence/Rome.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: A2
Date: 05/06/2007, 09:25 am
Hi all
We are planning a Switzerland stopover and thought we should cover the following:
2007/06/02: Zurich (14h00) – MT Pilatus (overnight)
2007/06/03: Mt Pilatus – Wengen / (Overnight)
2007/06/04: Wengen – Brig / Eggishorn (overnight in Brig)
2007/06/05: Brig – Domodosola – Lugano (overnight)
2007/06/06: Lugano – Milan (11h00)
We are age 37 & 39, would like to avoid big cities. In short we land @ Zurich 2007/06/02 and need to be in Milan 2007/06/06.
Please advice.
A2
May 6th, 2007, 12:29 PM
#3
Your itinerary only allows time for train travel and sleeping. You won't have time to enjoy the sights.
Personally, I'd skip Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus and go straight to Wengen. Enjoy the mountains in Berner Oberland, with its small towns, beautiful scenery and alpine sounds.
Personally, I'd skip Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus and go straight to Wengen. Enjoy the mountains in Berner Oberland, with its small towns, beautiful scenery and alpine sounds.
May 6th, 2007, 12:53 PM
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If you want to see the Swiss Alps, go to Wengen.
I for one never got too worked up over what I saw from a train window.
If you go to Italy via Spiez, Kandersteg, and Brig, you go through a tunnel under the Bernese Alps and through another long tunnel under the Pennine Alps between Brig and Italy.
Although you will pass right by the road and rail line that lead to Zermatt, you will not even get a glimpse of the Matterhorn or Monte Rosa. Being in the Rhone Valley between Visp and Brig is like being at the bottom of a hole.
If you go to Zürich, don't expect to get a good view of the mountains.
I for one never got too worked up over what I saw from a train window.
If you go to Italy via Spiez, Kandersteg, and Brig, you go through a tunnel under the Bernese Alps and through another long tunnel under the Pennine Alps between Brig and Italy.
Although you will pass right by the road and rail line that lead to Zermatt, you will not even get a glimpse of the Matterhorn or Monte Rosa. Being in the Rhone Valley between Visp and Brig is like being at the bottom of a hole.
If you go to Zürich, don't expect to get a good view of the mountains.
May 6th, 2007, 05:19 PM
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Agree to stay in Lucerne versus Zurich. It's only about an ahour away - but a world away in terms of great things to see/do - esp mountain ascnsions, boat trips etc.
And the train from Switzerland to Milan will be through some very pretty country - and you can get an afternoon train that's only 3.35 hours - fastre than flying.
But - I would tend to cut back on Milan and add to Lucerne or Rome - really more to see and do.
And the train from Switzerland to Milan will be through some very pretty country - and you can get an afternoon train that's only 3.35 hours - fastre than flying.
But - I would tend to cut back on Milan and add to Lucerne or Rome - really more to see and do.
