Milan to Basel the Scenic Way- Ideas for Optimal Bernina & Glacier Express Trip

Don't get Torino and Tirano mixed up. The former is a city west of Milan known as the Italian Motor City. The latter is a small town north east of Milan and the jumping off point of the Bernina Express.

Make sure you go in early October as the last Glacier Express is on October 11.

If you started in Milan in the morning, you could easily make the 13:17 Bernina Express to St Moritz by 15:45. You could also stay in Pontresina one stop before St Moritz. You can connect to the Glacier Express by taking a train from Pontresina to Samedan and boarding there.

And you can also use the regional trains from Tirano to Pontresina or St Moritz, with out the seat reservation fee. Same tracks, same scenery.

October is iffy, It could be nice, or it could snow in Zermatt that time of year. Who knows?

Thank-you Sam! We did not know that the Glacier Xpress did not run through October; sure enough it will be on its maintenance break by the time we would have wanted it. We would have figured it out eventually, but you saved us a bunch of time :)

That being said, we will just the Bernina Xpress and then make our way up to Basel. Are there any must-see spots or nice places to stay over on the way (scenic or otherwise) to Basel, or is Basel more interesting than anything along the way?

How many days do you have to get to Basel? What day do you land at Malpensa, and what is your boarding date for the river cruise?
You could take the Bernina Express all the way to Chur from Tirano and spend a night there. I would suggest stopping in Luzern, as it is a very nice city on a big lake with scenic cruises and several mountain top excursions available. From Luzern it is only about 1 hour by direct train from Luzern to Basel.

Thanks so much for your help Sam!

We have some flexibility as we are arriving 16 days prior to the cruise date at the end of October on the 27th.
This will give us room for our Swiss journey to Basel.

Our plan had us prioritizing Italy and then we became very excited about Switzerland once we learned about the Bernina and Glacier Xpresses; however, we will only be able to ride the former as our travel is too late in the year, as you kindly pointed out.

We will still do the lions share of the trip in Italy, but can take up to 3 nights in Switzerland. We are using Milan just as the final major Italian city prior to boarding the Bernina or traveling to Basel.

It seems that we have two options; one, kind of speed through Switzerland to Basel, or the other, take time and perhaps add some days (1-3) into see some fabulous mountain countryside.

We are also just starting to look at exploring the Italian mountains as opposed to the Swiss.

The Italian cities we are visiting include: Rome, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre region and Siena. We selected this from Rick's 10 day recommended tour.

Thanks for any insights that you can lend to our plan :)

I'd go like this.
Train from Milano Centrale to Tirano. There is a Bernina Express departing at 14:24 and arrives in Chur at 18:31. Spend the night in Chur.
Train to Luzern. Stay 2 nights.
Train to Basel for your cruise.

when in October is important to know. Days will be rapidly shortening and Europe "falls back" on different weekend than US and Canada.

Arriving that late into Chur may well be well after dark and won't see as much scenery.

Luzern is indeed a very good choice, and a train ride from there to Interlaken is one of Switzerland's best.

Then depending on timing you could visit Bern on the way through.

When is the cruise?

Europe goes back to standard time Oct 26, so keep that in mind. Otherwise sunset is around 6:15 pm in Chur until then in late October.

The cruise is on Oct 27 at this point. We are trying to get it moved up so that we can do the Glacier Express, but that might not work. We will be in Italy for 16 days prior, so we have some flexibility.