txkatherine

Travelling from Strasbourg to Bern (overnight) to Lauterbrunnen (2 nights) onto Salzburg via train 2 adults plus 12 &15

I'm thinking to book ticket direct with SNCF for travel from Strasbourg to Basel. (84E)

Then get a 4 day consecutive Swiss Travel Card plus Free Family Card (526 usd) for travel which would be used for Basel to Bern train, then Bern to Lauterbrunnen and all travel those 2 days, then train to Zurich.

Then book direct train with OBB from Zurich to Salzburg (92E)

Would this be the most economic way taking advantage of the kids travelling for free. I don't know all the buses and local transport costs once in Lauterbrunnen.

All included would average $45 per day per person of travel.

Please correct any assumptions I am making, etc. Thank you!

neckervd

"Travelling from Strasbourg to Bern (overnight)"
I suppose that means that you plan to sleep at Berne.

"Would this be the most economic way taking advantage of the kids travelling for free"
Why should your kids travel for free in France and Austria?

For the most economic way, you may check www.flixbus.com and the German Bavaria Ticket.

As to the Swiss Travel Pass, all depends on the trips you will do from Lauterbrunnen.

Be aware that the Bernese Oberland Pass (valid between Berne - Jungfrau area - Lucerne) would give more reductions on lifts and cog wheel railways in the Bernese Oberland
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ch/b...etrangers.html

PalenQ

For lots of info on Swiss trains and passes and the Jungfrau Region transports check www.swisstravelsystem.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

I think that the pass may be overkill - check out Half-Fare Card instead - free Family Pass is available with it or just alone.

Dogeared

I'm trying to figure out what the point of all this moving is.

You're going to spend an afternoon in Bern and then an afternoon plus one full day in Lauterbrunnen and then the next day travel to Salzburg.

So over the course of 4 days, you are going to spend 50% of that time moving from place to place. Does that sound like best use of 4 days to you? The other question would be is it best use of your money?

If the objective is to tick 3 names off a list, you will meet that objective. But if the objective is to spend time in places seeing and doing things, you will fall short of that objective since you will spend only 50% of your time in places.

I don't know what the rest of your travel plans(if there are any) look like but if they are like this part, you are probably moving too much and spending too little time in places.

thursdaysd

Have you studied the info on European trains and tickets at seat61.com? And I agree that the ratio of travel time to being there time seems highly unfavorable.

Christina

I presume the OP has a reason for wanting to see these places--it really is not that much moving around. The point would be to see these places, I'm sure, and I imagine Salzburg was the goal, and if you are in Strasbourg to start, this was a way to do that by train and break up the trip. The only train trip that is long is the one from Lauterbrunnen to Salzburg, that takes up 8 hrs. The others are short (Bern to Lauterbrunnen really short). They must really want to see Salzburg, that's their choice.

The only thing I find odd is the overnight stay in Bern given that the train from Lauterbrunnen to Salzburg goes through Bern, anyway (in fact, I think you may have to change). But if you are, that's one way of doing it. The other way would be to just go from Strasbourg to Lauterbrunnen to begin with, and then stop in Bern for an overnight on the route from Lauterbrunnen to Salzburg. I might do that to cut that 8 hr train trip myself. And I suppose the desire is to see Lauterbrunnen rather than Interlaken as you do have to change trains there to get to Lauterbrunnen.

But if someone really wants to spend most of a day in Bern, this itinerary is not spending 50 pct of their time moving around by any normal math calculation. The train trips are a total of about 12 hrs. Four days is 96 hrs. If you take off 8 hrs for sleep each night, that's still 64 hrs of time and 12 hrs is not 50 pct of that.

txkatherine

Neckervd, Nope, don't think my kids should travel free other places... never said that.

PalenQ, Thanks I'll look into the Half-fare card.

Dogeared, Our travel style is not for everyone.

thursdaysd, Yes, I've studied seat61.com.

neckervd

May be you come back as soon as your plans get more concrete.

In the case you will have a Swiss Travel Pass, you may probably find a cheaper Sparschiene ticket from Buchs SG or Feldkirch to Salzburg.
A web bus ticket Strasbourg - Basel costs 9 EUR/pax or 36 EUR for your whole family.

Dogeared

Christina, if the objective is, "to see these places" then why not just see them out of a train window? The word 'see' is meaningless unless you define what you mean by it.

You also say, "the objective is Salzburg" and again, what does that mean? Why not just take a train directly from Strasbourg to Salzburg if that is the case? You could be there in the first day.

You count time as if you have to do nothing when you move from place to place other than ride the train. Where do you allow for checking-in to hotels and checking out? Getting to/from train stations; waiting for trains, etc. Every time anyone moves from A to B, even if the actual train time is only an hour or two, the reality is you lose at least half a day making the move.

So if you start out in Strasbourg in the morning and go to Bern, you lose half a day. If you then move to Lauterbrunnen, you lose another half a day. Move to Salzburg and you lose a full day. That totals 2 days of your useable time. You don't count 24 hours per day and just deduct train time.

You suggest only deducting 8 hours for sleeping. When do you shower? When do you eat? Your method of counting time is so simplistic it is ridiculous. If you are going to try to count how time is actually spent hour by hour, then you will need to include ALL the things you do in a day with your time. That includes deducting for toilet breaks.

A move takes from half to a full day each time you move. That is the simplification and is easily justified and understood by most people.

StCirq

True. Deducting 8 hours from each day is only the half of it, just about. I don't know about other people, but I need a 1/2h to shower (so does my husband, so there's an hour...and we're pretty quick), some time to find somewhere to eat (1/2 hour if we're lucky), an hour to eat (if we're lucky), maybe a bit of time to find a shop to buy some juice and a few things to munch on it the hotel room, or a bottle of wine....and so on and so forth. It's not as though travel is a straight shot from A to B. And even then....Time adds up pretty quickly, and we're pros at European travel and speak a fair number of languages, so things usueally go pretty quickly and smoothly for us. It NEVER goes as quickly as you think it will. A simple headache and need to find a pharmacy and try to communicate with the pharmacist can eat into your day bigtime. Plus, there is always that odd moment where a festival or a music group or some local event diverts your attention from what your set-in-stone plans were and you just feel you have to go check it out. You may not think any of these things will happen, but trust me, they will. If that's not your "travel style," I think you may be missing the point and not calculating properly.

kwren

I wrote a trip report going from Lauterbrunen to Salzburg a while ago and talked a lot about train passes. Here is one tiny part of the report:

The Swiss Card got us as far as Sargans, the last stop in Switzerland, for free, and I bought tickets from there to Salzburg for 120€ for me and the kids for 60€ each. (Kids get half price tickets automatically in Austria)

What to do to keep 2 12 year olds happy for 9 ½ hours???

Well, there is always chocolate! Toblerone to the rescue!!
When changing trains, it’s always a thrill to watch the arrival and departure boards’ city names flip around to the new one.
Watch the grafitti go by – it seems to have risen to the level of art – some of it was quite colorful and beautiful.
OK – if I think graffiti is beautiful, it must be time for more chocolate.
Write in our journals – Ok that one lasted about 5 minutes for my kids, so time to eat our snacks.
And so on through the day.