Hi! We will be staying in Rothenburg, Germany ..afterwards we will be traveling down into Switzerland, ultimately staying in Lauterbrunnen. It seems that trains are 10+ hours with 5+ stops if we travel by train from Rothenburg to Lauterbrunnen.. How would you get into Switzerland? Should we rent a car from Rothenburg to Zurich, and then catch a train from Zurich to Lauterbrunnen? Can we even rent a car in Germany, and drop off in Switzerland? Should we travel to a different train station outside of Rothenburg first? Thank you for any help!
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23626 posts
The fee to drop the car in Switzerland will be greater than the rental fee. Not a good plan.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17442 posts
The trip from Rothenburg-ob Der Tauber starts out with several short journeys on little regional trains, so there are lots of changes. You could avoid those by driving part of the way if you can rent a car there.
It would be very expensive to drop the car in Switzerland. You should drop it in Germany, at a place with good train connections to Interlaken Ost, where you catch the local train to Lauterbrunnen.
Karlsruhe would work; there is a direct train (meaning no changes) to Interlaken Ost departing at 11:49on the current schedule. That has you arrive at Interlaken Ost at 16:26, less than 5 hour later. There are lots of other options at later times, mostly with changes on route.
Or you could drop the car somewhere along that line closer to Switzerland, such as Freiburg, which is a charming university town. The same direct train, EC 7, passes through there at 12:49.
Personally, if we were doing this, we would break up the journey with an overnight someplace nice—-like Freiburg (Breisgau). Just make sure to get the right Freiburg as there are several.