Italy and Swiss Rail Pass Question

For Switzerland a pass will save you money. The Swiss Pass almost pays for itself with the discounts you get to the Schiltorn, and Jungfrau. In addition it covers all inter-city trains/buses/boats, municipal transport, and free entry to most all museums. Check out the "railpass" section of this site for all your options.

For your Italy travel, P2P should be just fine. On your night train to Interlaken, two things. There is a night train out of Florence at 22:00 that is heading for Zurich and Basel (314 Luna). You will have to get off at Spiez at 5:43 to catch an R train into Interlaken. Second, there are two train stations in Interlaken. You will want Interlaken Ost.

If you are going to the Schilthorn and the Jungfrau (highly recommended), a Swiss pass of some type is adviseable. The roundtrip cost to the Jungfrau costs about $177 each. The Schilthorn costs about $91 for a round trip but could be slightly less if you depart from Muerren. One pass that can work well for you is the Swiss 1/2-fare card. It costs CHF99 and is good on all Swiss transportation for 30 days. This would include your subsequent journey to Zurich. 50% discount on all travel including the journeys up to the Jungfrau and Schilthorn. The savings on the trip up the the Jungfrau alone will almost pay for the card.

If this card is useful to you, I suggest that you purchase it in the ticket office when you arrive in Interlaken Ost.

A couple of more hints. First, you most likely will need to buy your night train tickets before you leave. You can buy this run on www.sbb.ch (the Swiss train site). If you buy from another site, I'm betting that they will only sell you a ticket to Interlaken Ost. The reason is that the Swiss want to be paid in Swiss Francs for travel on the Jungfraubahn and Schilthornbahn. Second, the 314 Luna does not depart from the main Florence train station (Santa Maria Novella). It departs instead from the Campo di Marte atation which is a few stations away.

According to the Trenitalia site, the standard fare for a bed in a two-person sleeper on the Firenze-Spiez night train is €145. The Smart 2 fare is €101. The Smart fare is €75.

Registering and booking on the Trenitalia site can be problematic. As Larry said, you can book this route with Swiss Rail, either online or over the phone. The fares don't show on the Web site, however, so I don't know if Swiss Rail offers the same discounts for advance purchase as does Trenitalia.

We traveled from the CT to Gimmelwald last week with a train change in MIlan and then to Zurich to fly out yesterday. We had a Swiss Pass and it took over when we crossed the border into Switzerland. Our travel agent told us to try to have the pass validated in Milan because there was very little time at the stop in Brig (just across the border). You may have a train change in MIlan as well. If so, we went to the Trenitalia office (with your back to the tracks, this was a glass office all the way to your left). They validated it with no problem.

The train to the Jungfrau was still 81 CFS from Klein Schedegg (sp?) with our Swiss Pass--higher than I expected. The gondola from Murren to the Schilthorn, plus breakfast, was in the mid 60's CFS, which we really enjoyed.

Having the pass is a great money saver as well as a lot less stressful than having to buy a ticket every time you jump on a form of transportation.