PhotogSusan

Is the Switzerland rail system like the train system in the US, or is it like the metro? I'm confused about what a Swiss Pass does. I've spent some time on www.raileurope.com but I still don't understand. Everyone suggests that I use the rail system for my stay in Switzerland (I'll be staying in Lugano for 8 days) but I have a hard time imagining that I can get around every day by taking train trips.

Can anyone expand on their own experiences? For instance, and please forgive my travelling ignorance, when you get to the train station...then what? Take a taxi to attractions? Walk around? I'm specifically interested in going to Interlaken to go paragliding, and I know I'd also like to take cable car rides up to mountain tops for the view, etc. so how do I get to stuff like that?

All I really care about is shooting great photos of scenery, people, the culture, etc.

Thank you SO much for any advice!

Susan

tcreath

Hi Susan,

While I have never been in Switzerland to have used their train system, I have used the European trains on several occassions. Last time we relied on it for almost two weeks without a car.

First of all, most of the train stations are right in the center of town. This is great because most things are within walking distance. Get yourself a couple of good maps and you should be fine. The trains in Europe are wonderful and very convenient. Switzerland is supposed to have one of the best systems in Europe. Just by looking at the Switzerland rail map, I'm amazed by everywhere it goes, especially considering the terrain.

Unless you plan on doing a lot of train travel, getting a Switzerland pass may not be your best option. Definitely do a price comparison between the pass and point-to-point routes on places you know you want to travel to.

Quite honestly, I can't compare the European rail systems to anything we have here. I guess they could be something similar to Amtrak, but much better.

Hopefully you will get some good info from someone who has used the Swiss trains, but I wanted to offer my thoughts.

Thanks!
Tracy

jmw44

The Swiss travel system is nothing short of amazing. Trains, buses, boats, all appear to be synchronized for easy connections. I always use a Swiss Pass which covers almost all of the above, but I hop on and off numerous times each day and love the freedom to do so. The economic value of it for you will depend upon how much daytripping you'll be doing -- how often you'll train or boat or bus or funicular (can that be a verb?) somewhere from Lugano. S' and others here can help you crunch the numbers. Have fun. J.

jmw44

p.s. If you have not visited the sbb.ch website, do so. Click on the English at the upper right.

swandav2000

Hi PhotogSusan,

I usually take the train around Switzerland, and I much prefer it for sweet and easy travel.

When you get to your destination station, you can usually walk around town, as tcreath notes. But when you're in the larger cities, you can easily get a bus. Your first stop in any town should be the tourist info office (usually in the train station or just next door), who can tell you the best way to get around, as well as the best things to see around town. They usually have a walking-tour type of map to hand out.

Switzerland is a particular delight because you can rent bicycles at the train station -- so you can get to a cozy village and cycle around or to the next village -- stopping here and there and snapping pictures. See www.rent-a-bike.ch for more info.

Be sure to check out the ferries. I love taking pictures from ferries -- the scenery is absolutely stunning. You can rent a bike, take it on a ferry, then cycle slowly back to town along the lake.

For the Interlaken area, the cable-car rides are in the villages of Wengen, and Grindelwald (for the Jungfrau) and Muerren and Gimmelwald (for the Schilthorn). Do a text search here for "Jungfrau" or "Schilthorn" to get more info -- or go to www.grindelwald.com, www.wengen.ch, www.wengen.com, etc.

I don't know about paragliding, but if you go to the Interlaken site (probably something like www.interlaken.ch), see if they have a listing for "sports" or "adventure" to get in contact with an adventure store and make arrangements. Interlaken has two lakes, by the way, that would be very cool to cycle around, stopping in some small villages.

I also want to let you know about the Swiss train system site at www.rail.ch -- it's more complete than rail europe & has real-time pricing (without the marketing mark-up). The trip from Lugano to Interlaken may be quite long, and you may want to stay overnight to be able to get everything done.

I hope this helps. Oh, by the way, pleasepleaseplease post your photos when you return!

s

bob_brown

I would say that comparing anything on rails to the Swiss Rail system is like comparing a third world country to a modern one. We are the third world country, backwards as we can get when it comes to rail travel.

The Swiss system is extensive, punctual, clean, and relatively quick considering the trains stop frequently in many cases.

I prefer taking the train to my destination from just about any arrival point in Switzerland. The only time I want a car is when I have designs on high mountain passes and remote alpine villages. Other than that, for intercity travel, take the train. Stations are in the city centers and the schedule is so frequent that you can go anywhere for the day and return, except for some of the villages deep into Graubunden Canton.

What does Swiss Pass do? It depends on what you buy. Basically the pass is good for a predefined number of days and entitles you to free rides every day all day.

The Swiss Card gives a 50% discount on all Federal train rides, many mountain train private lines, many gondola/cablerides, plus a free ride into one destination and a free ride out of the country. For my travel plans, I usually get the Swiss Card because it gives me 50% off expensive mountain cable system rides, like the Klein Matterhorn, the Jungfraujoch, and the Gornergrat (from Zermatt).

Were I city hoping I would get a pass and ride secone class because it is nice enough. Better than first class in many countries.

I suggest you go to the Swiss federal web site, there is an English version, and search for Swiss pass. Read up on it. There are many varieties and many choices; too numerous to discuss fully here.
www.sbb.ch and click on the English words.

mgmargate

Why Lugano for 8 days,nice place for a couple of days. If you have the desire to see more than use the trains to go to 2 or 3 cities and stay there for 2 or 3 nights each. This way you don't waste time traveling back and forth to Lugano.

travelbunny

..to compare and contrast...i was standing on the platform of the train station in the zurich airport with 2 north american collegues. on the overhead there was an important announcement - the train would be 3 minutes late. the three of us looked at each other and started to laugh

Singletail

In terms of your possibly not staying the entire time in Lugano, be aware that Swiss passes also include free public transportation in about 20+ of the large and not so large Swiss cities/towns which means you ride free on the Metro if there is one, the trams, the busses, as well as those lake steamers someone mentioned above.

In short the Swiss Rail system is what ours should be like but probably never will be...sigh.

tony

I agree with mgmargate in that Lugano is not the ideal place for the full 8 days, if you intend touring by train, which I highly recommend by the way.
A glance at a map of Switzerland will show that Lugano is right in the South Eastern corner of the country.
More central locations would be Interlaken (or Berne), Lucerne, and even Montreux. For example. from Lucerne you can easily make a day trip to Lugano, and cruise the lake for a while if you wish. Conversely, Lugano to Interlaken is not an easy trip, due to the mountains getting in the way.
My choice would be either 3 days at three places or 4 days at two places, probably Lucerne and Interlaken.
Not mentioned by others, is that in Switzerland the scenery is so stunning that the train rides themselves can be the highlight of the holiday.

clevelandbrown

I know of nothing in the US that compares with the Swiss transportation system. Trains, busses, postal busses, and even boats are all part of it, and the timing is hard to believe. When we first got there, we noted that our train arrived in Speiz, and the connecting train departed in less than five minutes. I frankly didn't believe we would make the connection, but we did, even without knowing the station or the language, and we did it many times. Once we went from Boltigen to Spiez to Thun, toured Thun, then caught a bus to Oberhofen, intending to return to Spiez by boat, but got caught up in the castle at Oberhofen and saw our boat depart, so we just took a bus back to Thun and the train back to Spiez. Need I add that the system is scrupulously clean, and the scenery everywhere is magnificent.

I would add that the passes are not always your best option. We got passes because we wanted the flexibility to go somewhere, then go somewhere else if the weather was uncooperative, but absent that capacity, point to point tickets would have been a better buy. The passes paid for themselves, however, when we acquired a grandchild and went shopping for a Heidi dress. There were none in Boltigen, and none in Zweissman, the nearest town, but the people there suggested they would have them in Gstaad, which they did. Since we had gone that far, we hopped on a train to Montreaux for lunch. Awesome scenery at every turn.

Since we do use the transportation heavily, I am thinking that next trip I will get the half-fare card and see how that works. It is good for a month, while the passes cost a lot more and are usually good for only shorter periods.

treplow

I don't know where the paragliding sites are in the Interlaken area, but suspect that there are many. Usually, where there are ski lifts operating in the summer in the alps, there are Drachenflieger (as paragliders are called). Try "Drachenflieger Berner Oberland" on the internet and see what comes up. If nothing else, it will improve your German! Berner Oberland is the region where Interlaken etc. are located

greg

I have seen paragliders descending down to Grindelwald in summer.

In my timetable I got at Interlaken station, it mentions paragliding from Schynige Platte from June thru October. Looks like you either take a bus from Interlaken West to Wilderswil or a train from Interlaken Ost to Wilderswil. Then a cogwheel train from Wilderswil to Schynige Platte.

princess_01ca

It is difficult to imagine without experiencing it but it is not only doable, in my opinion preferable.

I am from rural Canada and never imagined relying solely on Public Transportation. However I have now been in Switzerland 4 years and counting and have no intention of purchasing a car.

We travel all over the country using only public transportation almost every weekend.

Also, I second much of what others have wrote concerning public transportation.

PhotogSusan

Thank you so much for all of your replies. There is so much helpful information here -- I really appreciate it! I'm definitely excited about trying the public transportation system in Switzerland. It sounds like that in itself is an attraction to see.

I am staying in Lugano because I am tagging along with my boyfriend's company who is having a conference there (I should've mentioned that). The hotel will already be paid for, so I hadn't considered staying anywhere else. He'll be working, and I am taking the week to explore.

I don't mind hubbing out of Lugano. I will probably take two or three day-trips on the train, but I haven't decided where yet. I'm still reading lots of the literature I've received from the tourist center, and now I'll check out the websites you've provided!

Thanks again! You're all super helpful. : )

FlyFish

I've spent a bit of time traveling on the Swiss rail system - it operates so perfectly that I developed the habit of watching the station clock (which has a second hand) to see how close the train would be to its scheduled departure time. In three weeks of travel, the latest that any train ever was in leaving the station was 15 seconds - most were within one or two seconds of the scheduled time. My wife and I made several connections where the difference between the arriving train and the departing train was one minute - no problems at all.

And just one anecdote that tells you just about everything you need to know about Swiss Rail, and perhaps Switzerland in general: we were traveling with a small group from Zurich to Grindelwald on an IC train (to Interlaken Ost). One of our party left his daypack, with passport, other papers, and considerable cash, on the train and didn't realize it (believe it or not!) for two hours. We went to the police station in Grindelwald, gave them the number of the train and a description of the daypack - it was waiting for us at the Grindelwald station, absolutely intact, the next morning. Gotta love a place like that.

francophile03

The US doesn't have a rail system that compares to Switzerland or all of Europe in my opinion. Amtrak? The only national rail service we have that keeps having accidents? They can't even run one high-speed train without incident. And Europe has crisscrossing rail lines with excellent service. Sure, there are mishaps but very seldom.

vacationdreamer

As everyone has said, Swiss rail is excellent. I traveled via rail from Scandavia all the way down to Italy. Italy's rail was pretty bad. Germany, France, and Switzerland had the best systems, far better than the US. The only US line that even compares is the Acela Express line (which is actually pretty nice and clean), but even that is still considerably slower and far more expensive than the European trains.

jillc1

A few years ago, I was in Davos skiing. I had an early morning flight out of Zurich, and took the train from Davos back to Zurich. The hotel offered to put my bags on the train to go to the airport- ahead of me. They put my bags on the train from me leaving with them at the front desk in Davos. I took a later train that nite and spent the nite in zurich with an overnite bag. When I arrived home in Boston- my bags were the first ones off the plane! Now thats rail system!

ted_m

Susan,
We have used the Swiss rail system many times over the last few years and as a previous writer said they are amazing.
On our last trip our train broke down in a tunnel outside Brig on our way to Zurich. The Guard came and advised us of what had happened and help was on its way. We were shunted ( at speed) to the next junction stop, advised to stay on the same platform as another express would be arriving within 5 minutes. We arrived in Zurich 5 minutes after the original train was scheduled to arrive
They are amazing.

Regards and best of journeys.
Ted