Glacier Express and Bernina (non-express) Train in a Single Day

Hey, if you can stand 12 hours of train travel in one day, go for it. Hope the weather is good.

Get off the Glacier Express at Samedan and transfer to the train to Pontresina to get the regional train to Tirano. If it is before May 14, there is a replacement bus from Poschiavo to Tirano.

Thanks for the feedback. Margie, I agree that it is a long time to be on a train; however, we will be traveling in the Excellence Class coach for the Glacier Express segment, so that will ease the discomfort factor for the bulk of the trip.

Sam, we will be traveling after 14 May, so no issues with the bus replacement. When I look at the timetable for this route on SBB, I see a direct (non-express) train from St Moritz to Tirano that departs from St Moritz 11 minutes after the arrival of the Glacier Express (with another 8 minutes connect time in Tirano), which seems like the most convenient option (vs connecting in Samedan and Pontresina).

I did something like that last year, traveling from Bellinzona to Tirano, all by rail including the Bernina route. And I had a lot of transfers along the way. It was fine, and it was cheap, because I bought a Saver Day Pass that covered all that train transportation for CHF 52.

Mrs W has embraced this option, so it is a go-she prefers a long day on the train to an extra overnight stop (and all that goes with it). Between this long day and another one (Wengen to Zermatt via Montreux and the Golden Pass train), we will have a LOT of train mileage under our belts when we finally end up in Milan. That should hold me for at least a year or so, but I am already scheming about a return visit to Switzerland and the Italian lakes-there is so much to see and do, even 3 weeks is not enough!

Not sure if this will affect your timeframe, but substitute buses will be used along the route between Colico Italy on Lake Como and Tirano during the upcoming months because of work on the train tracks.
The work is being done in preparation go the February 2026 Winter Olympics.

Kenko, thanks for the input. After a bit of digging, I found this article that discusses the bus replacement plan for this summer:

https://www.sondriotoday.it/guida/trasporti/trasporto-ferroviario/stop-treni-tirano-lecco-estate-2025-orari-bus-sostitutivi.html

Fortunately for our plans, we will be traveling that route in mid May, prior to the planned interruptions, which according to the article are schedule for June 15 to September 14, so this will definitely affect anyone planning to ride the Bernina Express to or from the Lake Como area.

We did Excellence Class in October but going the other way. It was a completely fabulous journey and you will love every moment. We certainly did.

We are also train lovers, but the last hour got just a bit much, so I'm not sure how much longer I would have wanted to travel.

We spent two nights in St. Moritz, but I must say it was the funiculars that were so great, not the town itself. We also went to Positano and there wasn't a lot to do there.

Where do you plan on going when you reach Tirano. I assume you know that it is still another ninety minutes or so to Varenna?

We did an overnight in Tirano too, just to break things up after our Varenna stay.

DebH, thanks for the post. Our plan is the change trains in St Moritz (about 11 minutes between trains), then again in Tirano (8 minutes between trains), arriving in Varenna around 8:30 PM. We originally planned to spend 2 nights in the area, but the only cable car, funicular or cog railway that is running before the end of May is the one to Diavolezza-all the others are closed for the switch from winter to summer. We have a total of 4 nights to play with before our flight out of Linate, so the options I see are as follows:

1. 2 nights in Pontresina/St Moritz, followed by 2 nights in Milan (our current booking baseline)
2. 3 nights in Varenna, followed by 1 night in Milan (requires a long train day)
3. 1 night in Pontresina/St Moritz, 2 nights in Varenna, 1 night in Milan
4. 1 night in Pontresina/St Moritz, 3 nights in Milan.
5. 1 night in Pontresina/St Moritz, 3 nights in Monza.
6. 1 night in Pontresina/St Moritz, 3 nights in Varenna.

We will be spending our first 3 nights in Milan at the start of the trip, so option 4 was the least interesting, although I am certain we could find more to do than our first 2 days would allow. In fact, one activity we discussed as part of option 4 was a day trip to Lake Como, which led us down the path of the long train trip from Zermatt to Varenna.

I recently began looking at Monza as an alternative to Milan for our last overnight stop-the taxi trip takes about the same amount of time from Monza as from the Milan city center (30 min vs 20), it is closer to Lake Como for a possible day trip, plus there are some interesting sights to see in Monza itself (Villa Reale, Monza race track and F1 museum, Duomo).

For the last option, we looked at the possibility of staying in Varenna for the last 3 nights, but since our flight departs Linate at 9:45, I'm not sure that is a practical option. If it is, that would be the most desirable option, since we would eliminate the need for an overnight in Milan at the end of the trip. There is a 6:20 AM train from Varenna that arrives at Milano Centrale at 7:40 AM, so with a taxi or airport shuttle, we could still be at Linate 90 minutes prior to our flight. Or we could hire a private drive and eliminate the need for a transfer at Milano Centrale, although I am not sure that would be a faster option.

If it was me I think I'd spend the night in Varenna, but have a driver to take you to the airport.

We found the trains in that region to be very unreliable, in fact twice they let us down on our last trip and we were only there for four nights.

If you have three nights in Milan at the start, I really don't think you need more. Of course that is my personal opinion.

We visited Milan on a longer trip to Italy a few years ago and found two nights was plenty. An extra might have been nice, but certainly no more than three.

If you were a big shopper it might be different, but for us the only interesting things were the the Last Supper, the Duomo, the castle and the Galleria. One day easily fit all of that in.

For what it's worth, Milan is a very good destination for art lovers. I spent so much time in the art museums that I didn't have time to seek out the Art Nouveau architecture.