Wengen to Naples (was: Dilemma...choosing route)

When is this going to be?

Normally Wengen - Rome by train would take 7 1/2 hours, and would be a no brainer (as it takes you 3 hours to reach any airport). But this summer the Simplon route is partly replaced by busses, turning the trip in to 9 1/2 hours for Rome. And to Naples is indeed going to be longer.

However, long train rides are not that bad. I have done longer. On a train you can get up. You can go to the restaurant. Look out at the landscape. And you will have a few changes too. Passengers will board and leave, and you may have some interesting conversations. Play games.

My sister usually travels by train when visiting me, and that takes 11 hours (and five train changes). She sees it as an opportunity to have some quality time with her kids. Wengen to Naples is going to eat up a day no matter how you travel. Make it an interesting day...

The most time efficient way would probably be to take the night train from Milano to Napoli, but that would not be my first choice.

When is this going to be?

currently looking at Sun. Sept. 29 but it could vary yet

Normally Wengen - Rome by train would take 7 1/2 hours

not seeing anything that short at all using sbb website. seeing mostly 8.5 to 9 hours. some of these are via Domodossola and some are via Luzern-Lugano. My understanding was the Stresa-Arona stretch is scheduled to reopen around Sept. 08?

seeing 10h21m to 12h for Wengen to Napoli Centrale depending on route

we are flying home out of Rome, so makes sense to go from Wengen to Napoli from that perspective.

If you want to know what the normal schedule looks like you need to pick a date in this week. If you are looking far ahead and not seeing what you expect you are just too early. The Stresa - Arona line should indeed open in september, but the through EC trains have not yet been put on the timetable.

This is btw, why, when asking help with train travel, you should always mention your travel dates...

point taken!

9-9.5 hours to Naples is better sounding than 11-12 hours!

But my experience has been that the trains in Italy always run behind schedule; this could make your trip a lot longer. I' d break it up instead of trying to go all the way by train from Wengen to Naples in one day.

Trains in Italy are not as punctual as those in Switzerland, true, but the high speed strains are quite punctual. I would expect delays in the 10 minute range on such a trip, but not hours.

When we went to Italy a few weeks ago our train from Spiez to Milano (the one the OP will probably take) was late in Milano Centrale, but we still almost by accident got on the 11:58, in stead of the 12:10 we booked....

I would just go all the way. That day will be a day dominated by travel anyway. So just get it over with.

We had a September trip planned that required us to travel from Switzerland down to Naples to meet our hiking tour group. I planned our train travel with 2, 2-night stops on the way, at Parma and Orvieto, to break up the journey into enjoyable segments. That is our travel style, and we have the time to do that.

As it turns out, our hiking tour in the south was canceled, and we changed to one at Lago Maggiore. We will just have to see Parma, Orvieto, and Naples another day.

Update and questions!

We'll be in Switzerland in just 15 days! Excited! But also...I'm a little behind in some of the planning. I have not yet bought tickets to get us from Wengen to Naples...oops! But I have bought our half fare cards.

And yes, it will be a long travel day...between 10 and 12 hours! (edit: travel day Wengen to Napoli is Sun. Sept. 29)

1. What is the word on the works in Italy around Stresa-Arona? I thought they were supposed to be ending around now but I'm still seeing bus options on some routes?

2. I can book our entire route, Wengen to Napoli, on sbb.ch, right? Or should I only buy Wengen to Domodossola and then buy Domodossola to Napoli on trenitalia?

3. One option available arrives into Milan at Garibaldi station and requires us to transer to Centrale. Is 40 minutes enough time to do that?

Note: I do know the BO pass (which we are likely to purchase) covers travel to Domodossola, but only through Goppenstein. Which adds time. With already a long travel day we are going to ignore that. (Plus we'd have to buy a longer length BO pass too.)

Thanks for any input!

Honestly I would fly in this case, if the railways can't get their act together...

Easyjet is an option, and so is Swiss. Look at flights not only from Zurich, but also Basel and Geneva.

We are definitely reconsidering flying.

Also considering taking one night away from Naples and breaking the trip up if we decide to stick to the train.

If we decide to fly, there is a 12:15 flight from Zurich. How far in advance of the flight should we aim to arrive at the Zurich airport train station? It looks like we can depart Wengen at 07:13 and arrive Zurich Flughafen at 10:44 OR same route 07:42 and arrive 11:04.

Don't know your exact date, but if you leave just a little earlier, you could make it to Naples by 4:03 pm, not too much later than flying.
Leave at 6:43 am and the 8:05 EC train from Spiez is showing through service to Milano Centrale, then a train to Napoli Centrale.

Sam, the date is Sun. Sept. 29. I have it in the comment above though not in my edited original post, sorry.

For the 6:43 departure, I'm only seeing a 5:12 arrival and it uses a bus at the moment between Domodossola and Milano Centrale.

The 07:13 - 17:33 is the one that has the change from Porta Garibaldi to Centrale in Milano.

I'll be honest, I didn't think there would be a train that early, but there is a 05:04 departure arriving either 15:48 or 16:12. But this is a vacation...do we really want to try being up and out of our apartment for a 5:04 train?

The options are different on Sept. 29, a Sunday, for some reason. I started to write a long post comparing the route options offered by SBB and Trenitalia, and a mysterious RE train departing Domodossola at 12:56 to Milan that showed up on SBB but not on Trenitalia or the Trenord website. Maybe someone can explain RE 2407 and why it does not run on Sunday 29/09.

Well, we are flying ZRH to Naples. It definitely added up to a few more $$$ than we had hoped, but in the end didn't want to spend 12 hours on a train.

So...Zurich Airport. Standard advice is to arrive 2 hours before a flight. Is that true for ZRH? If so I think we are looking at the 06:43 departure from Wengen arriving Zurich Flughafen at 10:04. Our flight is scheduled to depart at 12:15.

If you do not check luggage, you can get away with reaching ZRH 90 minutes early rather than 2 hours. Not sure it will change much for your wake-up time, though!

Zurich is an efficient airport. And for a flight to Naples you don’t need to go through passport control.
Last week I flew from there and was airside 25 minutes after getting down from the train. And that included dropping off a suitcase. My flight was at 13:00 and I took the 9:00 from Interlaken as that was direct.

Thanks for the input on the airport. We don't want to cut things too close so we'll either stick to the 06:43-10:04 or the 07:13-10:44. We will be a party of 4 and will have bags to check. Those times come from the sbb timetable for going through Bern from Wengen.

If you leave half an hour earlier you could get the 7:00 in Interlaken, which goes direct to the airport...

@WengenK Thanks for that info about the 7a.m. I will keep it in mind!