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Border crossings

I am going to Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the first this coming July. We will spend a majority of our time in Germany in the southern Bavaria region. We hope to stay in Garmish-Partenkirchen, but would like to also travel into Austria and Switzerland, (and maybe pass through Leichtenstein just to say we did). Are border crossings into these countries easy? Do we need to allow extra time into our schedule to make these crossing back and forth? Any helpful advise?

Posted by
8889 posts

All 4 countries are part of the Schengen Area. Which means no regular border controls.
It is 100% legal to cross the border wherever and whenever you want, subject only to the laws of trespass.
I regularly cross borders by bus, train, car, on foot; there is nobody at the border, just a sign beside the road.

Switzerland is not part of the EU, so there is customs. That is only for commercial vehicles (trucks carrying goods). Other travellers need not stop if they have nothing to declare. Only major roads (which trucks use) have customs posts.

Posted by
4 posts

Thanks for the great input. This certainly does simply things for tourists to be able to move about easily.

Posted by
8889 posts

This certainly does simply things for tourists to be able to move about easily.

It's also pretty useful for the locals. There are rail lines from Garmish-Partenkirchen to Austria (for example Innsbruck), in the old days with checks it was a pain and a time waster. Now the only way you notice is that the signage changes from DB (German Railways) to ÖBB (Austrian Railways).

Posted by
2308 posts

And if you go into Czechia you will notice it by the fact that the Czech conductor speaks a more intellegible German than his Saxonian counterpart. ;)

Posted by
980 posts

And if you go into Czechia you will notice it by the fact that the Czech conductor speaks a more intellegible German than his Saxonian counterpart. ;)

Yes, I've even heard intelligible German spoken in Oberpfalz these days! ;)

DJ

Posted by
5697 posts

The train doesn't stop for border crossings -- but we have been on trains where there were people who were asked for their passports. Random checks ? Profiled ?? We couldn't tell. We were never asked.