My husband, and I will be traveling to Europe this summer with our two children (ages 14 & 17). We plan to fly into Zurich, spend a day there, then take the train to Lucerne. We would like to spend about 2 days in Lucerne then take the train to Florence. Has anybody done this? What is the best way to book train tickets, do I have to book them in advance?
Thanks,
carla
Go to www.sbb.ch. There are nonrefundable tickets available at a discount price of 283 chf (~$300) total for your family far a random date in June. You can buy on line and print the tickets at home. The "normal" price booked at time of travel would be 431 chf. There is a single change in Milan.
I checked www.italiarail.com and I got a price of $227 US for the same date and trains. I was getting confusing results from Trenitalia. This site is a international sales division of Trenitalia. There are some additional small charges for this of $19, but that is about it.
Try Treniltalia http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD
Make sure you enter ZUERICH HB and FIRENZE SM NOVELLA
Total journey time is 6hr23min with a change of train in Milano.
Tickets for departing from Switzerland would be most "safely" purchased from the Swiss site or Swiss train station. Last I looked, Trenitalia.com only sold international tickets for pick up at an Italian train station. Trenitalia's domestic tickets can be issued as print-at-home or "ticketless" e-tickets. There's no deadline to buy tickets, though the Italian ones can be cheaper with advance purchase.
In Switzerland, ask about a Junior Card to cover the younger child when you buy tickets. Or if you buy a one-month Half-Fare Card for tourists ($126 for each older person) or 3-day consecutive Swiss Travel Pass (about $220), then it's called the Swiss Family Card and is free. The value of these passes kicks in only if you use more trains, boats, and lifts during your stay in Luzern; the larger pass also covers museums.
About 8 weeks ago we took the train from Lucerne to Florence, after spending two days there. Very beautiful, scenic town. Don't know if you've made your hotel reservations yet, but the fantastic Hotel Walstatterhof is directly across the street from the station and reasonably-priced for Switzerland.
When booking the train, to obtain the best prices (and we did this about 80 days in advance) we used the SBB Swiss rail site for the Lucerne to Milan leg, then booked on Trenitalia for Milano Centrale to Florence SMN station. It was pretty cheap--second class was $40 apiece Lucerne/Milan, then Milan/Florence was $23 apiece. In March, the trains were about half-full as a rule, but this summer in high season I would absolutely book reserved seats in advance. As stated above, you can do it all online, and print out everything, including the itinerary just in case, and have the documents on your person when traveling. On the train, the man will come around eventually & will scan the digital square on each printout to verify your tickets, very easy.
And expect the unexpected. Leaving Lucerne at about 9:30 AM, we took a 30-minute ride on an older but beautiful regional train to a scheduled change at Arth-Goldau, a little Swiss town. From all we had heard, the train to Milan was supposed to be just across the platform and waiting for us, in a 10-minute window for the change. Wrong. There was nothing waiting for us, and I finally caught a glimpse of a timetable showing the Milan train down the stairs, under the tracks, and down another platform. We raced down there, and the conductor/porter looked at us, saw our concern and said that this train (for whatever reason--in Italy you don't have to have a reason sometimes!) only went to Chiasso at the Swiss/Italo border and there we would switch directly to the Milan train, which is what happened. I will say that the ride through the Alps was some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen, in & out of a snow squall, just beautiful any time of year probably.
It's a good thing we had planned in advance for a 90-minute layover in Milan before our train for Florence left, because with the extra change in Chiasso we only had an hour, which was still fine. Milano Centrale station is a crowded mess of humanity--even in off-season. We arrived at Florence Santa Maria Novella station about 5:00 PM, none the worse for wear and with a day of very interesting travel behind us.
