Connecting Switzerland to Munich

I plugged a random February date into raileurope.com and it returned a 2-change route from Interlaken to Munich, departing Interlaken Ost at 8 am and arriving in Munich at 3:11 pm. Seems reasonable to me. $200.

ETA: GoogleMaps says driving from Interlaken to Munich takes about 5 hours, but companies charge a nasty fee for renting in one country and dropping off in another. But if it is convenient to you then it may be worth it.

Only thing about FastEddie's suggestion, getting from Murren to Interlaken will take another 1-2 hours so that 8 a.m. departure will require a really early check-out from your Murren hotel. (We got a to-go breakfast so that we could be sure to conect to our Lausanne-Paris TGV at around noon.)

I imagine the last thing you want at this point is a suggestion for a different destination, but there's a large, very pretty, lake called the Bodensee (or Lake Konstanz) sitting on the Swiss/German border. The city of Konstanz is about a 4-1/2 hr. train ride from Murren and a similar or slightly shorter ride from Munich. There are pretty towns around the lake, and Mainau Island (not far from Konstanz) has an impressive botanical garden.

I only visited once, and too long ago to be able to recommend specific towns, but I've wanted to return. I think the Bodensee is at least as nice a destination as Lake Geneva (assuming you are not going to Lausanne specifically to see the Olympic Museum or the Castle of Chillon). I think if you stayed on the German side of the Bodensee you'd save money on your lodging as well.

The drive from Interlaken to Munich is not particuarly fast. I did the reverse several years ago, and it took me about 5-6 hours.

Not to mention the substantial international drop-off fee you'll pay.

Yea, I looked into the car and the one way fee is ridiculous. It seems like I either need to suck it up and take the longer train, or consider reworking the itinerary. By the time we get to GVA, which I suppose it about 3 hours, and take all the time in the airport, plus the flight itself, plus time in the Munich airport, I wouldn't be saving any time anyways.

Its weird, I am looking on the SBB site, and I can see the route from Interlaken to munich, but it wont allow a purchase (Im using random date for now, just to get an idea, far too early to purchase the actual tickets).

Dag, I think you'll be able to buy from the Deutsche Bahn. I see prices there for March trains. I guess this means it's a German train.

Oh I see that, you're right. Im thinking at this point, instead of trying to make it all the way from Murren to Munich in one day, I might just go down and stay a night in Interlaken to break it up, or maybe Zurich.

First thing, RailEurope is not the place to find schedules. They don't show evey train, only the trains for which they want to sell tickets, usually the most expensive ones. In this case those might be the trains you want, but still, use the Bahn schedule webpage. Anyway, the Bahn website is better at handling misspelled station names than is RailEurope.

You can pretty much count on Mürren to Interlaken taking three legs and an hour. From Interlaken to Munich, the Bahn shows a three train connection in 6½ hours. ViaMichelin shows the fastest route route as 5 hours assuming driving straight through with no stops for meals, fuel, or potty break, and no getting lost or caught in traffic. Plus you have the time to rent a car, and that route has almost $50 in road taxes. It would probably cost a lot more to drive and you wouldn't save much, if any, time.

If it takes 7½ hours by train and 3 hours to get to the closest airport, then flying will probably take longer, and will have a lot more hassle.

Hey, thanks for the info everyone. What I ended up doing for this leg of the trip was this:

Murren 3n> Colmar 2n> Munich

I feel it lets us break up the trip a little better, wits Murren> Strasbourg ~5 hrs and Strasbourg to Munich ~4 hrs. I considered doing the same through Zurich, but decided Colmar seemed a little more interesting to us (quaint?) I suppose... besides, its much cheaper than Zurich!

There is no easy way to get from Murren to Munich. Don't forget the extra time to get down from Murren. It was a long train trip, but Switzerland is worth it. We did it two years ago. The train is better than a rental car. Breaking the trip up as you suggest will help.

"get down from Murren"...down to where? You mean down to the valley floor into Lauterbrunnen? That "long" trip only takes 19 minutes.