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Milan to Paris - a Winter Excursion by Train

Posted by on

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone has had a great year and some excellent travel.

I am writing this post because, my wife and I are preparing to embark on a ‘Winter fantasy’ trip. I hope you don’t roll your eyes at this, but we live in Florida, so we never get to experience the charm of winter.

Our trip starts in Milan. We arrive on Dec 28, 2017 and our flight back home is on the 9th from Paris. Our goal is to start our trip from Milan, and make our way to Paris via trains while making a few stays along the way. The only concrete plan we know of already, is that we’ll be checking out of our Milan hotel on the 30th, to… an unknown location as of yet!!!

Something to keep in mind. We need to book a hotel for New Years. We want to find something good in a great place.

Here’s the favor I need from you:

  • If you were taking this sort of trip, what other recommendations of potential itineraries would you propose? What stops would you consider on the way from Milan to Paris that might be worth visiting in Winter?

  • We know that we want to travel mainly by train, although we could potentially take a flight to Paris if we find ourselves too far, ( say Vienna? ), and would like to take train trips that are not longer than about 4 hours at a time.

  • Sadly, we are not skiers, BUT, we’d be very excited to go to a great ski resort, that is friendly on non-skiers.

Here’s the only idea we had so far:

A. Traveling to Zurich or Luzern on the 30th, and spending New Years there.
- Milan to Zurich options:
- 1. Bernina Express from Tirano to Chur, then a train to Zurich or Luzern.

Thanks your suggestions!

Posted by
8889 posts

Sounds like a good plan. If you are not used to winter I would repeat what my mother always said "wrap up warm".
You have left the planning very late for this, 28th December is only two weeks away. You are too late for the cheapest train fares, and some hotels will be booked up.
You are travelling over the New Year, so doubly make sure you have accommodation and travel booked for 31st Dec and 1st Jan.

You need to get booking travel and hotels FAST!

Here are some very rough ideas. I count 12 nights on the ground.

  • Thu 28th Dec - arrive Milan. At what time? Stay in Milan.
  • Fri 29th Dec - Milan
  • Sat 30th Dec - Train Milan - Tirano - (Bernina Line) - St Moritz
  • Sun 31st Dec - St Moritz - Day trip by train along the Engadin valley and back again.
  • Mon 1st Jan 2018 - Train - Chur - Luzern
  • Tue 2nd Jan - 2nd night Luzern
  • Wed 3rd Jan - 3rd night Luzern. Day trip Interlaken and back again.
  • Thu 4th Jan - Train Luzern - Basel - Paris
  • Fri 5th Jan - 2nd night Paris
  • Sat 6th Jan - 3rd night Paris
  • Sun 7th Jan - 4th night Paris
  • Mon 8th Jan - 5th night Paris
  • Tue 9th Jan - fly back to the warm from Paris

Skip Zürich, you want snow and mountains, not a city.
Vienna is too far east, too much of a detour.
My plan has 5 nights in Paris. You may consider less (3 or 4) adequate. In which case stop off 1 night in Strasbourg between Basel and Paris. OR, add a day trip to London from Paris. OR, if you can switch your return flight to be from London, spend the last two nights there.

Start looking up trains and booking them NOW.
For the train Basel - Paris, website: https://www.tgv-lyria.com/en

There is lots to say about how to book trains. Come back and ask, or look up this website: https://www.seat61.com/

Posted by
8889 posts

I just went to the TGV-Lyria site and looked up Luzern-Paris. It said no options. The website has been changed (never a good idea), so it is possibly showing teething troubles.
I went to the SBB site (SBB = Swiss Federal Railways: https://www.sbb.ch/en/ ) and that gave me a number of options fro 4th Jan, including:

Luzern dep 10:54, Basel SBB arr 11:55
Basel SBB dep 12:34, Paris-Gare de Lyon arr 15:37
Price CHF 147 per person 2nd class.

Posted by
437 posts

I also like Chris’s plan but St. Moritz lodging is very expensive and scarce for those nights. Booking.com shows St. Moritz is 100% full and lists options 9 miles from town, so you may need to pick your New Years Eve stopover based on available lodging. Check if your hotel is within a reasonable distance of the train station or provides a shuttle service.

Enjoy your trip!

Posted by
7 posts

Unfortunately it seems like I’m going to have to change this up a bit.

I have to be in Paris Jan 1 or 2.

So I was thinking of still doing the Bernina from Milan to either Bern or Zurich and spend New Year’s Eve there. Then head to Paris via train on the 1st.

Is it possible to go from Milan to X city in Switzerland in 1 day via the Bernina? X city means the city where we can find the best 5 star hotel for New Year’s Eve. So far only seen a good one in Bern. Lucerne is fully booked apparently.

So the Bernina option is alive still (kinda), but we would skip the real Swiss trip and postpone it to October 2018. Mainly because we are not snow birds, and we might enjoy it more when there’s less snow for exploration on foot, bike, etc.

Posted by
8889 posts

You have boxed yourself into a corner here. You have to be in Milan until 30th Dec (1st post), now you say you have to be in Paris 1st Jan, and you have left it too late to book a hotel in most places for 31st Dec.

Bern is far superior to Zürich, so if you have the option of a hotel there I would choose it.
Look at a rail map of Switzerland: https://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/sbb/de/pdf/freizeit-ferien/ferien-kurztrips-schweiz/internationale-gaeste/uebersichtskarte_synoptic_map_2017_low.pdf
Milan is off the bottom of the map. the Bernina Line (Tirano - St Moritz - Chur) is on the right of the map, but Bern is left of centre. I think you will have to scrap the Bernina Line, too much of a detour.

Sat 30 Dec - Take a direct train from Milan to Bern
Sun 31st Dec - Explore Bern, Possibly day trip (by train) to Interlaken.
Mon 1st Dec - Train Bern - Paris

Checking the SBB website ( https://www.sbb.ch/en/ ), Milan to Bern on 30th Dec is avaialbale for CHF 90, Bern to Paris on 1st Jan for CHF 150. All prices depend on which train you take.

Posted by
7175 posts

Either ...
Dec 30 - To Montreux or Lausanne (1)
Dec 31 - To Dijon (2)
Jan 01 - Day to Beaune
Jan 02 - To Paris

Or ...
Dec 30 - To Luzern (2)
Dec 31 - Day to Pilatus
Jan 01 - To Bern (1)
Jan 02 - To Paris

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