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Travel from Cirque Terra region Italy to Interlaken (Berner Oberland) Switerland

I am planning on traveling from the Cirque Terra region in Italy to Berner Oberland Switerland this June. I have been searching train schedules, and have not been able to find routes for that travel. Are there night trains available? Is it better to book travel to Milan from Cirque Terra and on to Berner Oberland from Milan? Any recommendations/help would be more than appreciated!!

Katie

Posted by
8889 posts

There are lots of trains on that route. If you are not finding any it could be a number of issues.

  • Cinque Terre, as the name suggests, is five separate towns, each with a station (Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.). You have to pick one of them and search starting from there.
  • The Italian Railway site ( http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en ) will only show trains in, to and from Italy. It does not list Interlaken. Try the Swiss Railways site instead. ( http://www.sbb.ch/en ).
  • Italian timetables change in mid June. Look for dates before then, and assume no major changes.

I just did Vernazza to Interlaken Ost on the SBB site for a date in May, and it worked for me.
When you buy the tickets, you will have to do it as a split purchase on the two sites.

Edit. Fastest train I could find on my sample date was 7h54:

Vernazza dep 12:34 R 24456, Levanto arr 12:44
Levanto dep 13:02 IC 670, Milano Centrale arr 15:50
Milano Centrale dep 17:23 EC 36, Brig arr 19:16
Brig dep 19:20 IC 1084, Spiez arr 19:53
Spiez dep 20:03 IC 1083, Interlaken Ost arr 20:28

Posted by
32358 posts

Katie,

I've made that trip a number of times and it's very easy (although it will take most of a day for travel). You may have had issues with finding train information depending on which part of June you're searching. There will be a schedule change about 12 June, so schedules after that may not be posted yet.

It would help to know which of the five Cinque Terrre (note sp.) towns you'll be staying in? Also, where are you staying in the Berner Oberland?

I've found that it's often necessary to get an early start on that trip, so you might consider something like this (I used an arbitrary date of 15 May to check).....

Depart Monterosso at 07:29, arriving Lauterbrunnen at 14:55 (time 7H:26M, 4 changes in Levanto, Milano Centrale, Spiez and Interlaken Ost). There are numerous other solutions available, but most of them take longer or have more changes. The route suggested above is one of the shortest and easiest, and gets you to the destination at a decent time to check into your hotel and do a brief walkabout before dinner.