Hello,
I am planning to ride the Bernina Express on 5/18, picking up in St. Moritz and heading to Venice.
A group on Facebook says that the route from Tirano to Milan is closing on weekends due to rail line work in prep for the Olympics and you have to switch to buses.
How do we handle this? Should I abandon all of our plans? We are flying to Zurich the day before just the take the train to Italy.
I’m concerned.
I am very confused- what does your last sentence mean? Perhaps if you shared more of your itinerary we could figure out your intent.
Neither SBB, the Swiss rail system, nor Trenitalia, the Italian one, is showing this interruption in service on the schedules for that day. Last summer, I found that planned interruptions like this were apparent from the schedules months ahead (they affected our travels from Switzerland to Verona on the day we needed to travel). But maybe it just hasn’t be firmed up in the schedules yet.
If you are concerned, you have several alternatives.
One is to take the bus portion of the Bernina Express, from Tirano to Lugano, as well, then continue to Milan from Lugano.
The other would be to head from Zurich airport to Luzern, and take the Gotthard Panorama Express instead. This is a scenic journey by boat and train, down Vierwaldstättersee (Lake Lucerne) to Flüelen, boarding a train there for the scenic journey over the Gotthard pass route to Lugano.
Both Trenitalia and Trenord (actual operator) are showing normal operation on that line on May 18. I am trying to figure out why an anonymous post on Facebook would would have better information than the railroad that runs the service.
