My husband & I will be travelling from Vernazza, Cinque Terre to Switzerland on October 9th. Our end destination for that day is Madiswil, a small town west of Lucerne. We already have a Swiss Pass to use once we enter Switzerland. What is the recommended way of doing this? Do the Italian trains offer discounts if you already have the Swiss Pass? Thank you :)
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32212 posts
AFAIK, your Swiss Pass will not provide any discounts on trains in Italy, so you'll have to buy tickets for the segment from Vernazza to the Swiss border (Domodossola or Arth-Goldau?). You can either buy those tickets during your stay in Vernazza, or buy online in advance.
If the schedules don't change, one of the quickest trips appears to be a departure at 07:25, arriving Madiswil at 15:29 (Time 8H:04M, 4 changes). I used a Monday when searching that route. On that train the border point is Domodossola, but the train continues to Bern. It's an EC train, so I'm not sure if you'd have to buy separate seat reservations for the Swiss portion of the trip?
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
There is no discount on Italian trains for a "foreign" (Swiss) pass. You need to buy a ticket from Vernazza to the Swiss border station. The Swiss pass is valid from there.
You can look up train times on the Swiss railways site: https://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html
And then compare your chosen train with the validity map you got with your Swiss pass (copy here): https://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/sbb/de/pdf/freizeit-ferien/ferien-kurztrips-schweiz/internationale-gaeste/sts-geltungsbereich_en.pdf
You can see the border station on the map, probably (depending on route) Chiasso.
You then buy a ticket on the Trenitalia website from Vernazza to Chiasso, and use the Italian ticket up to Chiasso and the Swiss pass after that. You do not need to get off the train at the border.
Edit: Italian train times after 10th June are not yet loaded. Do a search for before 10th June to get an idea of the times, but you will have to wait before you can buy your tickets.