I had initially planned to take trains back from Wengen to Zurich, then fly to Catania. But I have no reason to return to Zurich and am now thinking it might be cheaper, or take less time, to go from Wengen to the Milano airport and fly from there to Catania. Or is this about 6 of one and half a dozen of the other?
If flying from Milano is a better option, would I change to the Milano train in Interlakken Ost or at Spiez? And does the airport stop come before Milano Centrale?
None of the airports in Milan are on a train line going to or coming from Switzerland.
Coming from Switzerland you would have to transfer at Milano Centrale to the Malpensa Express.
The train schedule options Wengen to Milan you can find by using the Swiss RaIl website
https://www.sbb.ch/en/buying/pages/fahrplan/fahrplan.xhtml
Oh, thank you. That makes it longer on the train than to Zurich, but cheaper flights (e.g., Ryan) depart Milan. I haven't been able to find any Ryan Air flights to Catania from Zurich. Do you know if we can book Ryan Air from USA or does it have to be done in Europe?
The Ryanair website doesn’t care where you are so long as you have $$$.
Ha! Which would you do?
What I would do is really carefully decide if I really truly wanted to fly Ryan Air.
They are having some money problems at the moment, but my biggest concern would be to be sure that they go from the airport I expect to the airport I expect - they tend to fly from some pretty tiny and remote airports that they have convinced to pay them to fly from, and if I had any luggage at all, even carry on, have I found all the hidden costs that they will hit me with.
Many times people have found that when they add in all the little costs to their cheap Ryan Air airfare sometimes legacy or other carriers will be close in overall price, without all the hoops to jump through.
Ryan Air is a safe airline, just add everything up before you decide.
Edelweis air and Swiss both fly Zürich to Catania.
Easyjet flies Basel to Catania.
Easyjet and Swiss both fly Geneva to Catania.
Easyjet is a budget airline, and is cheap if you book far enough in advance.
All 3 airports are easy to get to from Wengen. Milan airport is not, it requires many hours more and extra train changes.
Wow, these are great responses! Thank you all for your very helpful suggestions.
