Zurich landing and departure - Itinerary needed for Germany & Switzerland late April/ early May

You seem to pretty much know to what places you want to go, but I think the order is wrong. Do Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Munich, and Neuschwanstein in that order or reverse.

So far, all the places where you want to go are on major rail lines, except for Füssen (Neuschwanstein), but it is well served by local trains, so I see no reason to rent a car. You can do Füssen as a day trip from Munich. If you use a Bayern-Ticket with the train it will cost less than gas for a car, and a day trip will save you the hassle of relocation for a day.

Thank you! I will take your advise.

Do I need a Eurorail ticket and a Swiss pass?

I'd prebook saver fares (train specific) for Zürich - Heidelberg (from € 39.90, walk up fare is 94.20), Heidelberg - Stuttgart (from €19.90) and Stuttgart - Munich (from €19.90, full fare is 59.00). Munich - Füssen (-Schwangau) is local traffic, doable with a Bayern ticket €31/2). Details at www.bahn.com.

Thank you! I will do that. Once we get back to Switzerland, I suppose we will need a Swiss Pass.

Do I need a Eurorail ticket and a Swiss pass?

Difficult to say without knowing you itinerary in Switzerland, but I would say from experience that, for the parts of your journey in, or partially in, Germany, you would save by using Savings Fare tickets, regional offers, and point-point tickets. In my experience, it is difficult to make a rail pass pay.

For instance, with advance purchase, you should be able to get a Savings Fare ticket from somewhere in Switzerland to Heidelberg for less than 100€ for two people. I would spend at least the first night in Switzerland somewhere near Zurich and travel to Heidelberg at least one day later. Two reasons, one, you don't want to take a long train trip from your arrival airport the first day when you are jet-lagged from the long flight and time zone change. Second, although advance purchase tickets can save you a lot of money, they are train specific and can't be exchanged for later tickets on the same day as you use them, so if your flight is late, you can lose the ticket. Better to go to one of the places in Switzerland you are planning to see anyway, somewhere close to Zürich, and then use the Savings ticket on a later day when you know you can make the specified train.

Heidelberg isn't that far from Stuttgart. It might take an hour longer by regional train, but you can use, for instance, a Baden-Württemberg-Ticket at 30€ for two people. That ticket allows you unlimited use of regional trains in 2nd class in Ba-Wü for the entire day, so you still would have the flexibility of a rail pass. And the same (31€ for two people, unlimited travel on regional trains) would apply to the Bayern-Ticket for a day trip from Munich to Füssen. And the Länder-Tickets (as they call the Ba-Wü- and Bayern-Ticket) are valid for all local transportation by bus, tram, and U-Bahn, not just S-Bahn, so it would cover you to the Hbf in Munich and from Füssen to Hohenschwangau by bus, which the rail pass would not cover (rail passes cover S-Bahn but no other local transit). All of the so-called regional offers (Länder-, QdL-, and Schönes-Wochenende-Tickets) are one price whether purchased in advance or just before you use them (they do cost 2€ to purchase at a counter rather than from an automat).

For Stuttgart to Munich, two of you can do the trip on a direct ICE in just over 2 hours with an advance purchase, train-specific Savings Fare ticket starting at around 50€/2. With a Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket (52€, weekdays) or a Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket (50€, weekends) on regional trains, it will take just over 3 hours and you will have one change in Ulm, but you will have the complete freedom of unlimited regional trains in both Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, so you could stop anywhere along the way if you wanted to.

Lastly, back to Switzerland, with a Savings Fare ticket from the Bahn, you could go from Munich to Zürich by Eurocity train for about 50€ or by non-stop Bahn IC bus for 40€. Or, you could go by bus or train to Zürich and then on to Interlaken Ost by train for less than 100€.

So, depending on you Swiss routing, it might be best to use local tickets in Switzerland and what I've suggested in Germany or a Swiss pass and what I've suggested for Germany. I know what I've told you is complicated and there are a few more details, like what kind of Saver Fare tickets (regular or Super) to get and how to order your tickets. You need to get familiar with using the Bahn schedule and fare webpage.

There are others on here who can advise you better about your Swiss travel. When you have a better idea of your Swiss itinerary come back and there are people here who can help you decide what way to go.,

Wow Lee!

Thank you so much! Your response is so appreciated!

We (2 people) want to see Lake Lucerne, (Mt. Rigi, & Mt. Pilatus, the area around Interlacken-perhaps stay in Grindelwald and go up the mountains-hike down some and we are open to suggestions after that. With only about 5 or 6 days left. That may take up all our time as we have to end up back in Zurich to catch our flight home. We realize that Switzerland will be our more expensive section of the trip, so we hope to spend our time and money wisely. I would to work in Montreux-but it might have wait.

Thank you again for all your time helping me!

ZRH is a nice airport. I've used it a few times for trips to the Black Forest, Lake Constance, and the Alsace, all places fairly close to Switzerland and to the south of your destinations.

Tickets/passes: In addition to the fact that pre-purchased saver fares are train/time-specific - no changes possible - the pre-purchase period opens 6 months in advance - so for the low prices like the ones Lee has suggested you will likely need to jump on these tickets in late October and commit to your exact travel plans at the same time; tickets are capacity-controlled and prices rise as tickets sell, so waiting will normally cost you more - maybe a little, maybe a lot.

Details: https://www.bahn.com/en/view/offers/germany/saver-fare.shtml

If something comes up late in the game and you cannot travel or must change your dates - or if your flight is cancelled or delayed - refunds may be possible, but prices for last-minute tickets are likely to be much higher.

Rail passes however can be bought almost at the last minute. If it's a German Rail pass, you can buy one in Germany at major stations, avoiding shipping charges and getting personalized, face-to-face instruction and advice. (Not so from rail pass resellers.)

The Swiss rail system has "supersaver fares" available as well - but these are first available during a much shorter pre-purchase period. You can read about those here:

https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/supersaver-tickets.html

Thank you, Lee.

I need to map out a reasonable 6 day trip into Switzerland. As suggested, after a long flight perhaps we should overnight in Zurich and then catch a train to Heidelberg the next day. We will take a train from Munich back into Switzerland after the first week. We want to do Lucerne and I suppose Interlaken. It's been suggested that we not stay in Interlaken, but perhaps Grindelwald to experience more beautiful scenery. Again, we are open to suggestions. We need to be back in Zurich to spend the night for a 11 am flight back.

Unless you are already planning on spending at least one night in Zürich, I would not recommend spending the first night in that very expensive town. It's only a few minutes more than an hour from the Zürich airport to Luzern (vs 10 minutes from the airport to Zürich Hbf), where you have previously stated you want to spend some time, so why not go there first. A Saver ticket from Luzern to Heidelberg should not cost more, and might cost less than from Zürich.

You might even want to do all of your Swiss travel before heading to Heidelberg.

But, speaking of Saver tickets, as of recently (August, I believe), there are two type of tickets, Saver and Super-Saver. Saver tickets are much like they were before, Train-specific for the long distance train selected, but they have lowered the penalty for refund (or exchange) from 17€ to 10€ (they give vouchers, not cash, for exchanges or refunds), and they have added City-Tickets for selected cities, which, in your case, includes Heidelberg, Stuttgart, and Munich (but no Swiss cities). The City-ticket is for the core area of the city and allows you to use buses, trams, U-/ or S-bahn to get to you final destination. Super-Saver fares are strictly non-refundable and do not include City-tickets.

Both Saver and Super-Saver tickets require that at least one leg of travel be by a long-distance train.

Both Saver and Super-Saver tickets require that at least one leg of travel be by a long-distance train.

... and that leg must be at least partially inside Germany. It's a pure DB thing. I don't know of any railway of a neighboring country that imposes such a restriction.

Thanks, Lee.

I have booked a non-refundable room with breakfast (cheapest alternative) near the train station in Zurich for our first day. The advice given us was that we are arriving the last week of April and by going to Germany first, it would give time for the snow to melt in Switzerland so that we could access some of the hiking trails better (downhill of course). Nothing else is booked. Looks like the trains to Heidelberg and/or Munich are about 4 hours. It did seem like a lot of traveling on our first day. Zurich is terribly expensive, so we don't plan to spend a lot of time there, but we will need to be back by 8:30 am for an 11:15 am flight home on our last day - so we will probably need one more night there.

With all that in mind, if the snow wouldn't be an issue - we can do Switzerland first. I will look at the possibilities.

Thank you for all your input! It is much appreciated.

For your last night you might check prices in Lucerne and determine how long it takes to get to the Zurich airport from Lucerne vs. hotel prices in Zurich and the amount of time it takes to get from a zurich hotel to Zurich's airport.

Not surprisingly, the trip from Luzern or Zürich HB to Zürich Flughafen is the same as going the other direction, which I just posted above.

Luzern to Zürich Flughafen - just over one hour
Zürich HB to Zürich Flughafen - 10 minutes

Of course, you also have to take into account how close to either starting point you can stay.

BTW, I would not say that you should not do ANY travel the first day, just that you should minimize it. On my last trip, we flew into FRA and went immediately to St. Goar, where we wanted to go anyway, a trip of about 1½ hours. I've also landed at Munich and gone directly to Freilassing, a trip of about 2 hours.

A couple of hours just to get out of the high rent district isn't bad. Early in my European travel history I traveled 5 hours on the day of arrival and that, I've since decided, was too much travel.

Lee, if your response was in response to mine, my point was, sometimes in a larger city, say Zurich, it might take 20 minutes, maybe even longer, to get to the airport depending on where one chooses to stay. While in a smaller city, say Lucerne, one is often close to a train station sometimes within walking distance, and as you have stated, it is about one hour by train from Lucerne to the Zurich airport. So staying in Zurich in terms of getting to the airport in a timely manner might not necessarily save that much time. Of course, one must also compare the lodging prices. And Lucerne is a prettier city to stay in than Zurich. The OP seemed resigned that she should have to stay in Zurich on her last night, and I was pointing out that it is not necessarily the case.

When I stayed in Zürich, I was 5 minutes by streetcar, which ran every 3 minutes, from the HB, and it was not a real expensive place, by Zürich standards.

In addition to Zürich and Luzern, you might also check out Winterthur. It's about 25 minutes from downtown Zürich, but on the S-Bahn/train line from Zürich to the airport, and the airport is about half way between Zürich and Winterthur. It's only about 15 minutes or so, 5 minutes longer than from Zürich, to the airport.

Incidentally, I wrote "Luzern" and Jules wrote "Lucerne". We are both talking about the same town. Although Switzerland is officially multi-lingual (almost like North America is tri-lingual - English, Spanish, and French), the canton of Luzern, of which Luzern is the capital, has only one official language, a form of German. Although some people seem to think of Switzerland as some sort of multi-lingual paradise, 22 of the 26 cantons have only one official language (and three have only two).