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Travel in Switzerland from Lyon France

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My friend and I are celbrating our 75th birthday on a river cruise. We will end up in Lyon France. I want us to go to Switzerland so I may do some genealogy work and see where my ancestors came from. We will need to be in Lusanne and go to Lutry, Avenches, some of the smaller towns in Vaud and Friburg. I am not able to see how we can do this by train. I thought we could stay in Lusanne or Avenches and go to the other places by train. Or will we have to do it by bus? Can't quite figure out the pass system or point to point for these areas even though I have gone through your book carefully and the new information online.

Also need to know the best way to go from Lyon to one of those towns in Switzerland which we would use as a base for our stay. Thanks for your consideration and help. Jodi

Posted by
20238 posts

Easy train trip from Lyon to Geneva on regional unreserved trains. From Geneva you can get just about anywhere in Switzerland by train.

Posted by
2 posts

I tried to find out how to find the trains I would take from Lusanne to Avenches and Lutry and was not able to do so. Can you give me websites I can use, and what kind of pass we should get so we can figure out costs and travel time etc. Thank you

Posted by
7432 posts

Haven't been to Switzerland in ages, so I don't have any current recommendations on rail passes or tickets, but the SBB train system Website is at www.sbb.ch/en/home.html

Posted by
20238 posts

Maybe use the correct spelling of Lausanne will help. Lutry is a suburb of Lausanne, so besides the half hourly S-bahns, there are city buses and even cabs. There is one train connection per hour between Lausanne and Avenches via Fribourg. By national mandate, there is at least one train per hour at every train station in each direction during the day.
Be careful, the first price you see on the SBB website assumes you have a Half-Fare card, so you need to double that price. Also, just look at trips 4 weeks from now, not on your actual travel dates. Train schedules will change (but not much) and they only show prices for bookable tickets which is maximum 30 days out in Switzerland.
You have time to research any special regional passes or other pass options. For local trips, the full blown Swiss Rail Pass is likely to be your MOST expensive option.

Posted by
8889 posts

Perhaps your problem is spelling I went to www.sbb.ch to look for trains from Lyon to Lausanne, no problem.- Train ever 2 hours, change at Genève (Geneva), takes 2h40.
Lutry is on the edge of Lausanne, Lausanne to Lutry takes 5 minutes by train (literally)!
Lausanne to Avenches takes 1h25, changing at Payerne.
All these times are from www.sbb.ch

There isn't really an inter-town bus service in Switzerland. The buses serve the areas which do not have trains, and work as feeder services to the trains. The buses are also shown on the SBB website.

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