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Zurich / Lucerne / Grindelwald (?) / Turin itinerary advice

Hello all,

I'm traveling to Switzerland from 10-18 August with my wife and mother. Mom is pretty spry and up for long fairly flat walks, but not any steep hiking. We will be traveling by train, no car. Our tentative plan is:

Fly into Zurich on Saturday 10 August, and relocate to Lucerne for a couple of nights to visit Mt. Pilatus and that area
Relocate to Grindelwald (or Murren or Wengen or Lauterbrunnen) for three nights to visit First / Jungfraujoch / etc
Head to Turin for two or three nights, flying out on Sunday the 18th

My questions - first, is that a reasonable starting point? I haven't started investigating all the various rail passes and whatnot - I wanted to have a good skeleton of an itinerary first.

Second, any recommendations among Grindelwald / Murren / Wengen / Lauterbrunnen? Grindelwald seemed to have the most easily accessible walks, but I know it's not car-free like some of the others.

Finally, are there nice scenic trains from Grindelwald to Turin? Or to Milan, as I think Milan might have more connections.

Thanks for any help!
Bill

Posted by
21150 posts

Yes, you will have to go through Milan to get to Turin, its the Atlanta of Italy. The standard route uses 2 base tunnels that go completely under the mountains, but you can eliminate one of those by routing yourself via Kandersteg. That goes mostly over the mountains using the old Loetschberg Tunnel rather than the new Loetschberg Base Tunnel. You still have to use the Simplon Tunnel, unless you take the postbus over the Simplon Pass.

PS - Old joke: Even you get to go to heaven, you still have to change in Atlanta.