Swiss Watch Valley (Biel, LaCDF, Neuchâtel, Le Locle) and Lake Como for 2 Weeks

What is LaCDF?

La Chaux-de-Fonds*

You'll want to pick up and drop off the car in the same country to avoid a probably very high international drop charge. Whether you need a car at all will depend on exactly where you want to go. Switzerland has a very dense rail network, supplemented by the occasional bus over high mountain passes and lake boats.

Our folks knowledgeable about Switzerland can suggest the most scenic rail route from the area you plan to visit to Lake Como. Simply putting your origin and destination into a ticket-purchase website will yield the most efficient options. They may be among the least scenic, because they may route you through a lot of tunnels.

The issue with buying a round-trip transatlantic ticket to London when you really want to go to Switzerland and Italy is: How much time are you going to allow between the scheduled arrival time of your flight from the US and the departure time for your flight from London to Switzerland? You'll have to guess how much time you nee to clear immigration and collect your luggage, and (this year especially) you'll have to hope your transatlantic airline doesn't change your flight schedule or cancel your flight. If you miss that onward flight for any reason, it will not be the transatlantic airline's responsibility to get you to your final destination. Your ticket from London to Switzerland will be worthless, and the cost of a replacement ticket could be quite high.

I highly recommend that you go to an flight-search website (I use Google Flights but there are other options) and check for a multi-city ticket from California to Switzerland and from northern Italy (probably Milan will be the best choice) back to California. For the Swiss gateway Zurich would be cheapest for me. Geneva might be cheaper for you. There's no harm in taking a look at Basel as well.

Thank you for that information! We are considering using a car throughout Switzerland, but then taking a train (or private transfer?) to Lake Como. Another option would be to fly from either Geneva or Zurich to Milan and then get to Lake Como from there. We’d consider a couple nights in London at the start and another at the finish. As of now, we aren’t finding direct flights to either Geneva or Zurich from LAX, but if that becomes an option, we’d ditch London.

What a great piece, Amazing!

Hellomello, try booking multi-city flights starting in LAX to Genèva and from Milan to LAX. I’m using the dates Oct 6 through Oct 20, and British Airways has a flight for $763 with one connection both ways, London Heathrow and JFK.
Since I don’t know where you’re going on Lake Como, I entered LaCDF to Varenna-Esino in Deutsch Bahn rail site and it’ll take 7h 15m and requires four connections. If you do a car transfer from LaCDF to Varenna from either Genèva or Basel, that will take 4h 30m.
You can take a direct train from Genèva airport to Neuchâtel (1h 30m) and rent a car there. It will take 30-minutes to drive from Neuchâtel to Le Locle and from Le Locle to LaCDF another 30-minutes. You can also take a 15-minute train from Le Locle to LaCDF.
If you take the Bernina Express to Lake Como, I would drive from LaCDF to Chur (3h 15m) and drop the car off in Chur before hopping on the Bernina Express to Tirano (4h). You can then take a 1h 30m direct train from Tirano to Varenna-Esino.

Thank you, everyone has been so helpful. We are considering staying in Bellagio or Como as home base on Lake Como and exploring from there via ferry, etc. It seemed the drive from Biel to Como would be about 3.5-4 hrs, which feels doable, assuming the international rental car drop fee isn’t prohibitive. It seems there are train options from Zurich to Como as well, so that’s something for us to consider.

If anyone has done a tour of the Swiss watch valley and has suggestions for how to make the most out of all the tours/museums and how many days to allow for it all, that would be very helpful. It seems like a topic that isn’t well-described after some google searching.

I’m also all ears for anyone’s opinion on how to get the very most out of Lake Como, which has been my dream destination for years. I have the time for a week or so there so no limits!

Taking the train from Zurich to Milan takes as little as 3 hr. 15 min., so flying from Zurich wouldn't really make sense. The trip all the way from La-Chaux-de-Fonds to Milan would be a bit over 5 hours. Flying from Geneva to Milan would also not be faster by the time you figured in the time needed to travel from La-Chaux-de-Fonds to the Geneva airport.

I am not suggesting that the 3 hr. 15 min. rail trip between Zurich and Milan is the way I'd go. I'm assume there are more-scenic options, and I think extra time to get a great view of the Alps would be time well spent.

Edited to add: There are hourly train departures from Biel with connections that will get you to Como in 3 hr. 49 min. after making two transfers. The first will be in Olten or Zurich; the second, in Lugano. The scheduled shows a very short transfer time in Lugano, but it appears the two trains will be on adjoining tracks, so you'll only have to walk across the platform to get to your new train.

I've only made an in-transit stop in Como, but others seem to suggest staying around the middle of the lake rather than in Como itself. Bellagio and Varenna are often mentioned; they're on opposite sides of the lake.

I think you're going to find the fee for dropping a Swiss car in Italy is hundreds of euros, based on what others have reported on the forum. It does no harm to check, however.

We rented an apartment in varenna and loved it. We took the afternoon ferry to bellagio and found it really crowded

Hellomello, you can take a 4h train from Biel/Bienne to Como that requires two connections. I also looked at guidebooks and Lonely Planet has chapters on Neuchâtel, LaCDF and Biel/Benne.