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Switzerland Itinerary (with a side trip to Venice). Would appreciate advice!

Posted by on

Hi! My husband and I and two of our sons (ages 20 and 13) will be arriving in Zurich on July 29th and departing August 12th. We have part of our trip planned but really would appreciate some advice/input. We will be visiting a friend in Bern our first night and then spending five nights in the Berner Oberlander (three nights in Wengen, two nights in Murren; my 20 year old will have spent six weeks studying in London prior to our trip and be ready for hiking and nature.) After that we know we want to include the Swiss Chocolate train in Montreux and a trip to Venice. We would like help with the following:

1) What is the fastest train route between Switzerland and Venice?. Should we leave from Lucerne? Spiez?? Do you have any general advice on taking the train to Venice from Switzerland? (For some reason it seems complicated to me.)

2) A rough allocation of our itinerary is below. Where else in Switzerland would you recommend to round out our trip?

Night one: Bern;

Nights 2-6 Wengen and Murren

Night 7 ?? What city makes the most sense as a launching spot for weekend trip to Venice

Night 8,9,10 Venice

Night 11, 12 and 13 ?? This is where I'd really appreciate your suggestions. Where should we return to from Venice? How should we spend these three days. We would like to include the Swiss Chocolate train in Montreux some time during these three days.

Night 14 Zurich (6 AM flight on August 12th)

Thanks so much for any help you can give us!!

Posted by
7209 posts

Spending some time in or near Lucerne would be great as it is beautifully scenic as well as well connected with public transport including the boats on the Lake Lucerne. Lucerne has some very nice hotels as does the lakeside villages of Weggis and Vitznau. In Weggis (the base of the Rigi and right on the lake) we've stayed at the See Hotel Gotthard - wonderful place. With a 6 am flight out of Zurich you'll need to spend the night at an airport hotel. But on that day as you depart from either Lucerne or Weggis you could store your bags at the train station and set off to see Rhine Falls about an hour from Zurich. Or actually you could fly from Venice (VCE) to Geneva on EasyJet and see the wine country as you train back to Zurich.

Last idea - fly from VCE to Munich (MUC) on some super cheap airfares on either Transavia Airlines or Air Dolomiti. Munich is a blast especially with young adults. Then you could train back to Zurich in 4 or 5 hours.

There are several nice options.

As for travel between Venice and Murren - we do it this trek every year. You'll change trains in Milan (Milano Centrale) and that's about the most complicated part of the trip. In other words it's easy. Yes, it's kind of a long trip about 8 hours. But it's very do-able.

Posted by
9 posts

Your trip sounds like great fun! Last September my husband and I took a direct train from Lausanne to Venice, going through Montreux, Brig, Milan, and Verona (about 6 hours). This train runs once a day, and at the time, was the fastest route from Lausanne. We bought our tickets online before we left. The train was on time, comfortable, and we had no complaints.

If you are ending your vacation in Venice and need to return to Zurich, flying might be a good option. Otherwise, a train through Milan back to Switzerland would work.

Venice has enough to do for 3 days. Many tourist guides can give you some great places to visit. We especially enjoyed Burano. The crowds, though, were daunting, making the experience not as great as it might have been.

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks so much for your suggestions. In order to get the best price on tickets to Venice do I need to book tickets from Switzerland to Milan and then separately use the Trenitalia to book the leg from Milan to Venice. I will definitely look into spending time in Lucerne.

Posted by
7209 posts

yes. book the Italian legs Milano -> Venice on www.trenitalia.com as soon as they become available. Have booked that route in the past for as low as 9 Euros.

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