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Lake Geneva Area - Guidance

Posted by on

Hello all, starting a new thread.

On Sunday, May 11th, my wife and I would like to spend the day in the Swiss Countryside, but the Chocolate Train is not running and we do not have a car rental. We'd love to use public transit to navigate around the Gruyers, Broc, Bulle areas seeing many of the sites listed in the RS guide. My question is how difficult is it to do that in terms of finding our way and there being regular available train service to jump from point to point?

The day before, Saturday May 10th, we are hoping to visit bothy Yvoire and the Chateau down here Montreaux. What is the most convenient way to do that?

Lastly, if we are unable to get out to the countryside on Sunday, what other day trips or excursions beyond what's in the guidebook would people recommend? Boat trips, other towns, etc, would all be welcome. Thanks.

Posted by
22117 posts

www.sbb.ch/en will show you all the train connections you want. There is always a train in either direction at least once per hour.

Posted by
857 posts

To see timetables for trains, use SBB.ch/en — you can even type in physical addresses for start and end points and it will show you exactly what combo of train, bus, walking, boat, etc. you need to get where you’re going, including maps. It can feel intimidating when you haven't done it before, but all the workers at the train stations speak english, so if you get confused, just go up to a desk or find a worker on the train and ask for help.

Doing Yvoire & Chateau de Chillon/Montreux into one day will be a bit of a long day, but if you get going in the morning you can do it with a combination of bus, boat, train and walking.

Bus from Geneva to Yvoire (1 hour), explore for a couple hours, boat from Yvoire to Nyon (35 minutes), Train from Nyon to Montreux (55 minutes), walk to the chateau along the lakeside promenade, tour the castle and then perhaps take the boat from the chateau to Vevey, have dinner and then train back to Geneva (70 minutes). It will be a long day, but doable.
You could also do it in reverse, going down to Montreux first, then taking the train to Nyon, boat to Yvoire and dinner in Yvoire before taking the bus back to Geneva. I would pick which of the two places you're most excited about and start with that first so that in case things take longer or you feel like you've crammed in too much that you can alter your plans to just expand on one of the two options. Instead of Yvoire, you could do Chateau de Chillon, Montreux and the Lavaux Vineyards.

Times for everything are on SBB.ch/en and boat timetables on www.cgn.ch/en/

Posted by
1364 posts

We did this last summer on the local trains with our Swiss Pass. Just download the SBB app. We went from Montreux to Cailler Maison, train to Broc, bus to Gruyère, bus back to train station and back to Montreux. (I think I got that right :-) but it was easier than it sounds) You change trains a couple of times but small stations and very easy and the app has all the info. It is an all day trip but Cailler had a very good chocolate tour and Gruyère though touristy was a lot of fun.

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