munich to interlaken rt

For most of what you described, trains should be fine. See some of the other posts in this forum for the opinion on the "Romantic Road"... or, I'll just summarize here. The name was the invention of German travel agents in the 1950s. Although there is some nice scenery from the road, there isn't anything in particular to distinguish this stretch of asphalt from several other routes that run south to the Alps... well, other than the view of Neuschwanstein at the end of the road. Drive it if you have a specific interest in visiting some of the towns along the route. Otherwise, don't go out of your way.

o.k. then we shouldn't get a car but get a eurrail pass from munich to interlaken?

Buy a point-to-point ticket from Munich to the Swiss Border. From there you should purchase one of the Swiss Pass options which will give you free passage all the way up to Wengen and from Wengen to the Jungfrau for a hefty discount (Jungfrau is expensive). Also get either a Free Swiss Family card with your Swiss Pass order -OR- purchase a cheap Junior Card for your son to travel free with you in Switzerland wherever you go.

Lastly - don't stay in Interlaken but rather up in the Alpine Villages of Lauterbrunnen, Wengen or Muerren. Interlaken is a fantastic transport hub, but it's not in the Alps.

We found Interlaken to be the best home base (best hotel...good price.. Bernerhof) There are two train stations here that connect to the mountain trains and also an easy trip to the Matterhorn or any place you want to go. We also flew into AMS and had a delightful train trip right into Interlaken with one change in Frankfurt...the scenery was beautiful and we didn't need a map..

Surely you can't possibly mean to use Interlaken as a base to see the Matterhorn???

Unless you are going to do a lot more rail travel and don't mind paying extra for 1st class, I wouldn't get a Eurail pass. They start at five days, which is overkill for a simple round trip with two days of travel.

The discount Bahn ticket from Munich to Interlaken would be a Europa-Spezial-Schweiz ticket, as low as €39 per person one way 2nd class, €59 1st class. It works the same way as a Dauer-Spezial-Ticket, non-refundable, day and train specific, but if you schedule it when you purchase the ticket, you can build in intermediate stops on the way.

Surely I do mean to use Interlaken to see the Matterhorn. We have done it twice.. short train ride to Brig and then awesome mountain train to Zermatt. We then took the Gornergrat up to the Matterhorn. Absolutely wonderful day trip.

I had not planned to use Interlaken as a base from which to do a day trip to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn, but after reading Dianne's posting, I'm intrigued! Is this an option worth considering, or would we be better off just staying overnight at Zermatt and making our way to Interlaken the next day? Thanks.

Penn

Diane:

I agree that staying in Zermatt is preferred to staying in Interlaken. Why spend all that time on the train when you can better use it in seeing the Alps around Zermatt.

A native Swiss told me it would be cheaper to buy point2point tickets than buying the Swisspass for the week I traveled Switzerland.

Several people who have researched the question agree that the p2p is better.

Interlaken to Zermatt roundtrip is at least a 5 hour journey. You don't need to waste that much time sitting on a train. If you really want to see Zermatt then stay in Zermatt for a night or two. After all, you probably visited to Switzerland to actually see the sites and NOT the inside of the train ;-)