Border crossings between Switzerland and Italy by Train

Please read the following link about rail passes. You don't need one - it is a waste of money:

http://www.seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go

There are no border controls between Switzerland and Italy. It is like crossing a state line in the US.

Many of the places you plan to visit from Lugano for day trip (?) are too far, such as Venice and Bologna.

"Point to point fast train" - I think you mean a long distance train. Point to point refers to when you buy a ticket from point a to point b, either from the train station or in advance online from the national rail carrier of the country where your trip originates.

Finally, do not use Rail Europe. They are a ticket reseller and you will waste your money.

Much of your post reminds me of the famous trick question, "when did you stop beating your wife?" Before asking that question, one must first ascertain 1) does the person have a wife? and 2) did he/she ever start beating her? In your case, "how do I visit all these places from Lugano?" - you don't. And "which train pass do I get? - Probably none, but it's much too early to know.

Staying in Lugano to visit Milan, Bologna, Venice, Rome, Zurich, Bern and "the lakes of Switzerland" (not sure which ones you mean) as daytrips is like staying in New York City to visit Boston, Washington, Nantucket, Pennsylvania Dutch Country, The Poconos, and Connecticut as daytrips, just because it looks central to these on a map. It's MUCH too far, in both these cases, to see most of these places as daytrips. And even when it's possible, it's not desirable. You will do much better starting in Rome and ending in Zurich (or vice versa), and actually staying in each place you want to see.

Second, trains are indeed the best way to get between these places, but a train pass for Italy is almost always a great waste of money. Full priced last minute tickets aren't insanely expensive, and if you can commit to non-refundable and non-exchangeable tickets bought in advance online, those are quite cheap (€9-29 each). For Switzerland, a pass of some kind often pays off, but which kind depends on your exact travel plans.

So, start over. Plan a three week trip with a few nights each in Rome, Bologna, Venice, Milan, Lugano, Bern, and whichever lake area in Switzerland you want to see. (By the way, I know I sound negative, but this should be a GREAT trip!) The way the trains go, that's a logical order, and none of your train rides will be more than a few hours.

I haven't been to Zurich, but it gets few good reviews (unless you're loaded and looking for lots of high end shopping). Zurich airport has direct trains, running once an hour, to Luzern, a very nice place that's also on a lake. Or, if you wanted to end in the Lake Geneva area, there are similarly direct trains from the lake towns right into Geneva airport (no need to stay in Geneva itself; you can stay in Lausanne or Montreux and train in for your flight).

Once you know where you want to go and in what order, only then can you figure out which trains you will take and whether a pass will be worthwhile.

Again, I don't mean to be harsh. You have a potentially wonderful trip, which will only be ruined if you try to do it all from Lugano.

To say that there is no border control between Switzerland and Italy is not completely correct. Long before the refugee crisis, and even after Switzerland joined the Schengen area, there have always been controls at the border between the two countries.

I speak from personal experience on many trains over many years.

While Switzerland is now in the Schengen Area and nominally allows free passage of people, it is not in the EU (it is in the EEA) so does not share a common customs frontier with EU countries.

So while the armed border agents walking through the train at the border (Domodossola or Chiasso for example on the main routes, other crossing points on other routes) are nominally Customs officers looking for contraband they have immigration officer friends nearby. In my experience they tend to pick on a few people in each carriage and often open bags and check passports.

I wouldn't be particularly surprised if they are looking a bit deeper now.

I wouldn't be concerned about crossing the border several times, but I would certainly take Harold's advice.

Trying to do all that from Lugano - nice as I find Lugano (but it is really expensive for everything there) - would not be my idea of fun.

I should have been more specific. I appreciate this forum and all the insider information that is shared. I'm a companion traveler with my sister who is there on business and I have my days free to travel and thought that day trips to different cities would be nice. I don't want to be city locked. With train travel so easy and being close to the Italy border, exploration of the different cities would be cool to do. Hiking and site seeing are high on the list of things to do. Any advise is greatly appreciated.
That said I don't know if I should start a new topic for this style of trip???

If you want to hike in the Alps, do it early in your trip. The weather will only worsen, and generally, high altitude Alpine hikes are impossible by late October.

why don't you use www.sbb.ch and find the exact train times to your various location wish list. Then you'll know which of your destinations are possible and which ones are not.

Thank you for the clarification. It helps tremendously. Now we know what we are dealing with.

Your situation may be one of the very few where a pass into Italy MAY make sense. Or maybe not.

How long are you willing to travel each way for these jollies? If money is no object, and you can get out of bed very early and don't mind a whistle stop visit, and don't mind getting to bed very late possibly you could do 3 hours each way, so 6 hours on the train each day might give you 8 hours on the ground at your destination.

In 3 hours you can reach Verona, nearly Vicenza, Milano, Varenna, etc. Venice is at least an hour further, so 8 hours on the train.

Is that what you had in mind? Or less?

Nigel, Tim, etal.,
Yes early morning departure on the train, travel to explore city and or hike (dependent on weather) then returning in the evening is what I expected. I would like to concentrate on Northern Italy - day trips- for about a week, then on the weekend I can do a longer trip with my sister. I don't mind the early and returning late then getting up and doing it again :-)
I also will spend 1 week doing the same thing in Switzerland, with a weekend trip in Lucerne to plan yet.
That is why I'm not sure what type of train pass to purchase?

Also bear in mind that pass between CH and Italy is a hotspot for refugees, so conditions may change daily or even hourly.

FWIW, on the TGV between Lausaunne and Paris there were no stops or border checks of any kind. I just wish they had mentioned that we wouldn't be hitting actual TGV speeds until after Dijon ....

A Swiss Pass or at least a half-fare card might make sense for the CH portion. You have to do the math, or at least outline your plans and discuss relevant passes with someone in the ticket office at Lugano. We bought half-fare cards and recouped the expenditure quickly, in a very few days.

We encountered a very thorough sweep of the train coming from Italy to CH last week. Border patrol with a canine, as well as Italian Guardia di Finanza actually came throug and interviewed some people. They are being very careful with the current situation here.

On a nice day, an easy trip would be to take the bus to Menaggio on lake Como. You could take a ferry over to Bellagio and see if George Cluny is walking around. also keep in mind that we are getting less than 12 hours of daylight every day.
Milan is just a little over an hour away. Luzern about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Visiting Italy as day trips from Milan would not be a particularly efficient way to travel but with fast trains would be possible. Adding the apparently short but slow segment between Milan and Lugano would make day trips much more impractical.

As for the border crossing: be sure to have your passport with you - even if Switzerland and Italy are in Schengen area, controls are always possible and likely. Border police rides trains and their controls are fairly accurate. Italian police will likely look for people illegally moving cash through the border (remember than when you are entering/exiting Italy with more than eur 10000 in cash you have to file a customs report). Swiss police will be looking for illegal immigrants (in my experience anybody with even lightly coloured skin is likely to be checked) and Swiss citizens trying to smuggle goods in Switzerland (they are fairly strict, as even too much ham or cheese from Italy qualifies as smuggling to Swiss police). Every now and then both police forces make spectacular findings, like the time they caught two Asians walking the border at Chiasso station with some 134 billion dollars in presumedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds.