I am on a RS tour ending in Bern on July 13. I want to take a direct train from Bern to Frankfurt, has anyone done that? I know it’s too early to buy tickets but would I need to buy separate tickets for the Switzerland portion and the Germany portion? Thanks for your help!
Posted by
Green Bay
20094 posts
There is, according to the current schedule, a connection every hour from Bern to Frankfurt, taking 4 hours or less. A couple are direct, the rest with a train change in Basel. You can buy a single ticket at www.bahn.com. Advance purchase tickets can be as low as 39.90 EUR if you buy as soon as they go on sale.
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
Easy peasy. Look up times on the SBB (Swiss railways) website: https://www.sbb.ch/en
There will be one train every hour, usually chance at Basel. Takes about 4 hours. The station in the centre of Frankfurt is called "Frankfurt (Main) Hbf", the one at the airport is called "Frankfurt Flughafen". The times for 13th July 2018 are already available, but tickets are not yet on sale. When you buy, you will get one ticket which will be a get a "print-at-home" ticket e-mailed to you.
Posted by
OP
Oregon
45 posts
Do you know if I need to buy separate tickets on separate sites....one for Switzerland and one for Germany? Or does one price take me through both countries? Someone told that I needed to buy a ticket to cover the Swiss portion and a ticket for the German part, even though it was a direct train, so I’m a bit confused.
Posted by
Green Bay
20094 posts
If you go to www.bahn.com, you will see that is is one ticket. SBB will also sell you a single ticket, I would guess more expensive, but it will be in CHF while Deutsche Bahn will be priced in EUR. SBB and DB work together so you only need a single ticket. Nothing to be confused about. Thousands of cross border train tickets are used daily. They've been doing this for a while.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
32757 posts
"someone" was wrong.
One ticket, all the way.
"someone" may have been thinking about various passes, which would be correct if you needed a different pass for each country. But in your circumstances a simple ticket, cheap as chips if bought early, will do everything you need it to.
If you get one of the through ICE trains which originate in Interlaken and go through Bern to Frankfurt you don't even have to get out of your seat for the whole journey if you don't want to.
Conductors in both Switzerland and Germany will want to see your print-at-home ticket, but only one ticket is all you need.
Posted by
OP
Oregon
45 posts
Thank you everyone, I appreciate your responses! I am now confident I know what to do :)