My wife and I are planning our second trip to Italy next June. This time, we've decided to conclude our trip with a week in Wengen Switzerland. We'll probably be departing from Castellina, and looking at a map it wasn't real clear which route would be best. We'll have a car, but would probably want to drop it off somewhere and take the train. Is the trip doable in one day, or would it be best to spend the night (or 2) somewhere along the way?

Thanks.

It was interesting reading about your trip in June because we are also going in June and we will be leaving Interlaken (Wengen) and heading to Panzano which is next door to Castellina. We will be spending 8 days in Switzerland and we are driving (flying into Zurich). Unless the weather is bad, we will be driving route 11 across the Susten Pass and then on to Lugano, Italy. Have you checked www.viamichelin.com for how far the trip would be? I think it would be too far to drive in one day. We are dropping our car off in Lugano and taking the train to Como, Italy and picking up another one (to save the outrageous drop off fee). The train runs every l/2 hour. If you haven't been to the Lakes, I would suggest a night there.

I think you'd have to spend the night enroute.

I once took a 10 am train from the town of Stresa on Lago Maggiore to Murren, and it was about 7 hours to get to Interlaken.

If you didn't want to get on a train in Florence to begin this route, other logical places to drop off your car would be Milano Centrale, or you could drop off your car at Malpensa airport and take a shuttle bus to Stresa, spending one night on the lake.

I don't know anything about rental drop-offs beyond that.

Different companies have different rental locations. I would not want to attempt to drop a car off in Milan and deal with the traffic, or even in Florence and deal with the ZTL. Avis has a rental location in Stresa (on Lake Maggiore), and Hertz has one in Arona (one rail stop closer to Milan on Lake Maggiore).

I would drive from Castellina to Stresa or Arona, and drop my car there and spend the night. You can look up driving directions/time on www.viamichelin or Google Maps. Via Michelin shows it's about 4:22 on the autostrade from Castellina to Stresa.

From Stresa, the fastest trains take only about 2:30 to Interlaken, and 3:15 to Wengen (add 15 minutes from Arona). The new Lotschberg tunnel, opened in 2007 has made this journey faster than previously. Look up trains on www.sbb.ch (choose English).

If you tell us your rental car company, we can look up other suitable drop off locations.

Thanks for the replies. I had input the information into Google maps, and it showed a driving distance of 644 km and almost 7 hours of driving. But we don't want to take our rental car to Switzerland. We enjoyed taking the trains on our last trip, but aren't sure how to check schedules for going from one country to the next.

We spent 4 nights in Varenna on our last trip, and really enjoyed Lake Como and the surrounding area. Is there a train route that goes through Lugano and on to Interlaken? Are there certain trains that cross the borders?

Any other suggestions of places in-route to spend a night?

Thanks lovisa - I just saw your reply after I posted again. Great suggestions.

You can take a train via Lugano, but it will take 2:15 - 2:30 longer.

The shortest train ride from Florence to Wengen is 7:25 shown as follows: 2:20 Florence - Milan; one hour layover Milan; 3:30 Milan - Interlaken; 45-50 minutes Interlaken Wengen.

Either of the rail routes to Switzerlnad along Lake Maggiore or along Lake Como go through Milan. The Lotschberg tunnel route takes you along Lake Maggiore through the Simplon tunnel to Brig; Lotschberg tunnel to Spiez; Spiez to Interlaken.

If you want to go through Lugano, you go Milan through Como to Lugano to Lucerne via the St. Gotthard tunnel, and from Lucerne to Interlaken. From Milano Centrale it will take 6:35 - 6:45 on the fastest trains to Wengen on this route.

Hi VistaRob,

Just a note about getting the trains chedules -- you can get all the schedules for the whole continent at the Swiss rail site,

www.rail.ch

That link goes directly to the English pages.

Hope it helps you plan your train trips!

s

You can find a Swiss Rail map here:

http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/file...-09-EN-WEB.pdf

If you're planning to buy a Swiss Pass for your time in Wengen, you can activate the Pass where you embark on the train in Italy, pay for the Italian portion to the border, and continue on using the pass (probably not worth wasting a day of the pass, however, if you stopover is Lugano) .

I don't know how the new tunnel would affect this route, but I wanted to add that when I returned to Italy after Switzerland, I traveled from Spiez to Locarno, and from there took an hour bus ride to Menaggio on Lago di Como. I then took the 15-minute ferry ride to Varenna. The routing afforded me a scenic train route back from Spiez (via Lucerne and Lake Brienz).

But it appears to me from lovisa's information that you could drive to the town of Como and drop off your car and take a train to Lugano.

Thank you so much for all of the replies. It sounds like we have some great options, and the websites really help, too.