My husband and I are planning a trip to Europe for September/October 2017. We want to see Austria and Italy and I want to get in a trip to Buix Switzerland where my ancestors came from. Would it be better to rent a car in Switzerland in order to do my side trip? I want to visit the Catholic Church where my ancestors records are as well as see the countryside and get a feel for the area. We have not decided where we will fly into so we may start our trip in Frankfort or Paris. We hope to use trains for the majority of our travels but will consider renting cars if it makes sense. Thanks for any suggestions and tips for our planning.
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
I had to look up Buix, it is very obscure. Canton Jura, population 476. It has a station, which means it has an hourly train service.
Assuming you are flying transatlantic (you don't say where you live), you could fly to Paris, Frankfurt (spelling), Zürich, Geneva or Milan.
You need to firm up a plan. Is Switzerland before or after Austria and Italy?
How much time do you want to spend exploring the Buix area? If you are just visiting the village, train will be OK. If you want to spend multiple days, a car will help.
I think you need to firm up your plans, and then decide on transport.
Posted by
Washington DC
28065 posts
I did a quick-and-dirty check on Rome2Rio.com rather than going to the SBB (Swiss train) web site. I'm please to report that there seems to be hourly service to Buix from both Biel and Basel (possibly with one change along the way). So you can certainly get to Buix without a rental car. You might still want one for local explorations.
Wikipedia tells me that Buix is now part of a new (as of 2009) municipality called "Basse-Allaine", which might be helpful in your planning.
If you scroll down on this webpage you can download the "Network map Switzerland". After opening it in Acrobat, I right-clicked and chose "marque zoom" so I had a good view of the Buix corner of Switzerland. Rail lines are shown in red; postbus routes are in yellow. I'm a big fan of postbuses, which are used for transportation to small towns and in mountainous areas where the trains may not go. It's much more relaxing to let someone else do the driving, especially in the mountains.
You can search the postbus timetables here to see whether runs are frequent enough that you won't need a car. I'm sure there's an app you can download to your smartphone or tablet so you can keep all the Swiss timetables at your fingertips. Do be careful when you Google "postbus", because Austria also uses that term!
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33818 posts
Buix has a tiny station, with service to Biel/Bienne