Rail Questions

Most of these are not high speed trains and so base/standard price is relatively cheap, with less savings for advance purchase. Regional trains don't offer any savings for advance purchase, are best to buy in a train station or travel agency in Italy, and most regional train schedules are not yet published past June 13.

The DB train schedules have pretty comprehensive info for most of Europe, including Italian regional trains. However, the train route Milan-Varenna-Tirano is not reflected there; you will find it instead through the Italian site www.trenitalia.com or the Swiss site, www.sbb.ch.

SBB will be better to give you all the Varenna-Lauterbrunnen connections (6-7 hours travel time, versus about 5 hours via Milan; both routes require a few connection, and yes, I think the scenery is worth the extra time).

A Swiss Transfer Ticket plus Half Fare Travel Card could be a good value for your Swiss travel, giving you full coverage from Tirano to Lauterbrunnen and Lauterbrunnen to the German border, plus half off other transportation during your stay. [Or, on the other thread, it also looks like you could consider a Germany-Switzerland pass; I would not choose a more-expensive 4-country pass.]

I posted on your other thread but will just point out that you can get a very cheap Smart Fare on Trenitalia for the Intercity train portion---either Milano Centrale to Spiez, or Mil.C to Zurich. These tickets are on sale NOW for your July dates on Trenitalia (I checked July 4).

And going to Monterosso, the best train is the direct Milan to Monterosso Intercity train. There are be several each day and you should be able to get an Economy fare (9€ or 19€) when the fares are published. Keep checking.

Thanks Sasha and Laura for help in both of my posts! To recap for Italy:

Milan/Monterosso-Keep checking for fares to load and try to get the 9E or 19E fares. Any idea when they will load or is it just checking everyday? We fly into Milan the afternoon of the 26th so our plan is to stay the night there as we'll be exhausted from our flight from the US. I'll look at the direct train for late that morning or early afternoon to coincide with check in at our hotel in Monterosso.

Monterosso/Varenna- Sounds like probably the same advice for the Milan/Monterosso fare? Find an advance purchase to Milan and the Varenna to Milan will be about 7E? I can book that leg now or wait since the fare won't change much.

Varenna/Lauterbrunnen-need to do more research to see which option makes sense. I'll look at schedules today and the different fare discount cards. When I looked last night, the only trains I saw besides going through Spiez had 8-10 connections, so I need to look more. That would definitely be a scenic route! :-)

Jed

The scenic Bernina Pass route (via Tirano and Chur instead of going back to Milan) does have a lot of changes. But if you go the Gotthard Pass route from Milan to Zurich, you have a total of four changes: Milan, Zurich, Bern, and Interlaken Ost. That is only one more than the Spiez route (Milan, Spiez, Interlaken Ost). It just depends on whether you want the fastest way, through two long tunnels, or a slightly longer way with several much shorter tunnels and some views.