We are attending a wedding in early September in Ascona. We will be landing in Zurich at 6:00 A.M. and planning on taking the
Treno Gottardo. Can we get through customs, take the train from the airport to Zurich HB in time to catch the 10:05 train or should we plan for a later one?
On the way back we are going to staying Lucerne for a few days. Thinking about staying close the the train station there. How close is that area to the Alstadt area walking wise?
Thank you!
The train station in Lucerne to old town is about a 5 minute walk.
a short stroll in Luzern. It is all right there.
Your arrival could be changed by the airline, you could be delayed. There could be queues. Otherwise 4 hours should be fine.
There is no need to plan for a particular train. But with a landing at 6:00 you should be able to be on the 8:05 Treno Gottardo.
What you should do is buy a Saver Day Pass as soon as you are committed to travel (ie, when you have your plane tickets). The Saver Day Pass gives you unlimited travel on all public transit in Switzerland, and thus will allow you to get to Ascona by whatever route and trains you fancy.
For such a distance the SDP will be the cheapest option.
https://www.sbb.ch/en/buying/pages/kontingent/kontingent.xhtml
So then it will just be a matter of getting your luggage, walking to the station, and getting on the next train.
In Luzern the station is basically just across the river from the Old Town. Depending on what else you plan to do in Switzerland you may want to look in to getting maybe the HFC.
Thanks to everyone for your responses!
When traveling on the Treno Gottardo after the wedding, we are not sure what time we will want to leave. If we buy tickets for a particular time, are they useable for all times on that route? Does it work the same if we chose to go First Class?
Thank you!
Rollin Garland
Normal tickets in Switzerland are for a route, not a train. So they are flexible. SBB calls these "point to point", which in my opinion only someone with poor English skills could com up with :-)
A lot of the confusion foreigners experience is because they expect train tickets to be for a particular train, whereas the norm is that they are for a route, and it is only in some exceptions that they are for a train.
So even if you select a particular train for Ascona- ZRH you will end up with a ticket good for travel from Ascona to ZRH, valid from 0:00 on the day you bought, till 5:00 the next day. (so 29 hours in total). Within that period you can make one trip, on trains of your choice, and you are even free to use either the old route over the pass, or the new one throuigh the gotthard base tunnel.
Normal tickets are also the same price regardless wether you buy them a year or a second before departure. So you do not need to buy them far in advance, as long as you buy them before you board the first service. But they are expensive, especially on long distances.
So for example a normal ticket Ascona - ZRH, without reduction, in 2nd class is 73,60 That includes the bus from Ascona to Locarno. In Switzerland all public transit is integrated, so you normally need only one ticket per trip.
When yiou book in advance you will also be offered some special deals.
- One of those deals is the "Saver Day Pass". The website will automatically offer that for your travel day a pass is available that is cheaper than the normal ticket. The SDP allows unlimited travel on all public transit and is thus fully flexible. This is the best option for your arrival day btw, so I hope you have already bought one, as they only get more expensive, and eventually even sell out completely as you approach the travel date.
Note that these are special deals, not always available, and only sold in limited quantities. The reason they exist is because SBB is making to much money and so the government has forced them to offer these discounted tickets.
