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Itinerary feedback and holiday questions

Posted by (Coronado, CA, USA) on

We're planning a trip to Switzerland and western Austria in September, and would love some feedback. We are an active couple in our mid-50s and our main interests for this trip are:

  • enjoy scenic train travel and mountain lifts, with some time in the cities

  • hiking, max 10K at a time, on terrain that is not too challenging (i.e. well marked path, no rock climbing requiring use of hands)

  • see world championship cycling races in Innsbruck on Sept 26 and Sept 30

I understand that Sept 16 is a national holiday in Switzerland. The current itinerary has us on the Glacier Express train that day. Is the holiday likely to affect train service, or make it difficult to find accommodations or food in Zermatt? The itinerary below is mostly based on Rick's 2-week train plan. Does it make sense? Any place where we are spending too much or too little time? All comments or recommendations are welcome!

Sept 11 to 12 - arrive Zurich, continue on to Luzern (2 nights)

Sept 13 - Gotthard Panorama train, sleep in Lugano

Sept 14 to 15 - Bernina Express train, sleep in Pontresina (2 nights)

Sept 16 to 17 - Glacier Express train, sleep in Zermatt (2 nights)

Sept 18 - Lausanne

Sept 19 to 22 - Golden Pass train, sleep in Lauterbrunnen (4 nights)

Sept 23 to 24 - Appenzell (2 nights)

Sept 25 to 26 - Innsbruck - cycling

Sept 27 to 28 - Salzburg

Sept 29 to 30 - Innsbruck area - cycling

Oct 1 to 2 - back to Zurich, fly home on 2nd

Posted by
8889 posts

The 16th September holiday is strange, it always falls on a Sunday, so it is invisible.
Public Holidays follow the same rules as Sundays. Businesses must be closed (except for transport, restaurants, hotels and anything supplying travellers). Public transport runs a Sunday service on Public holidays. For trains, this is nearly the same as the other 6 days of the week, except for not having extra rush hour trains.

About your plan - I like it. A few comments:

  • 14th Sep - The Bernina Rail line does not start in Lugano. You need to first get a bus from Lugano to Tirano, which only runs once per day.
  • Bernina Express, Glacier Express, Golden Pass - These are extra tourist trains on rail lines which, like all rail lines in Switzerland, run one train in each direction per hour. If you don't like the timing of the extra tourist trains, just take a normal hourly train, you will see the same mountains.
  • 29th - 30th Sep - Why double back to Innsbruck? You could have one stay of 4 nights in Innsbruck, followed by 2 nights in Salzburg.
  • 1st - 2nd Oct - back to Zurich, fly home on 2nd. - Why? That is a long way to double back. Better, after Innsbruck and Salzburg, go to Munich and fly home from there.
  • If you double back to Switzerland, don't stay in Zürich. Instead stay in Luzern. 70 minutes by train from Luzern to Zürich airport.
Posted by
54 posts

sundayspritz - Thanks for the idea! I will take a look at the Herzroute and see if we can make any of that work into our plans. It does sound like fun.

To Chris -- It sounds like the public holiday won't impact us much if at all, which is good to know.

I also appreciate the info on the trains. Rick Steve's Switzerland book says to take the Bernina Express bus (#731) from outside Lugano's train station at 10:00 to Tirano and switch to the train there, so I think that is the same route you mentioned. I will definitely double check the time the bus leaves and make sure we are on it.

The reason for doubling back to Innsbruck is so we can see the second of the UCI world championship cycling races we are interested in. The men's time trial is on the 26th and the men's road race is on the 30th, and DH would really like to see both. I was hoping to squeeze Salzburg in between the two. Alternatively we could just stay in Innsbruck (well really somewhere nearby since hotels are already booked full in that area due to the cycling event) and do day trips from there without relocating back and forth. Do you think that would be a better use of time?

On returning to Zurich at the end, I'm finding that round-trip flights are significantly cheaper than open jaw, hence the choice to go back and fly home from there. I thought to stay in Zurich at the end so that we could see a bit of that city since we are starting the trip in Luzern. I originally planned on flying out of Innsbruck or Munich on the Monday after the bike races but then I found doing that adds about $1K per person to the airfare, so it actually saves a decent amount of money to stay a day longer and go home via Zurich! I'm still shopping for airfare and have a few google alerts set up, so I may yet find a bargain on a different route though.

Posted by
8889 posts

I wondered whether you had a good reason to visit Innsbruck twice. And, if you have to get back to Zürich you have to travel through Innsbruck anyway. I think you will like Salzburg.
Another plan, how much are flights back from Vienna? You could go there after Innsbruck/Salzburg for your last 2 nights.

You can look up Swiss train and bus times on the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) website: https://www.sbb.ch/en
If you look up Lugano to Pontresina on 14th September, be sure to add "via Tirano" so it routes you the way you want. It will list this route (amongst many others):

Lugano, Stazione dep 10:00, BUS 5950, Tirano, Stazione arr 13:00
Tirano dep 13:41, R 1656 Regio, Pontresina arr 15:52

Note the bus has an R by it. Reservations compulsory on this bus.

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