Lauterbrunnen to Rothenburg Ob der Tauber

Jed, since you are going on a Sunday, if you go through Basel Bad, which is in Baden-Württemburg, then to Karlsruhe, also in Ba-Wü, then to Bavaria (Ansbach, Steinach, Rothenburg) you can use the €35 Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket. On the other hand, if you go around the east end of Bodensee, which will take you briefly through Austria, to Lindau, you can use the €27 Bayern-Ticket from there to Rothenburg.

Either ticket is good for up to 5 people at that price.

Lee, thank you for the information. Can you explain a bit more the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket? Is that a weekend ticket and something I can purchase in advance, or do we get off the train to buy it? I'm guessing like the other Lander tickets, it's for regional trains only? I went onto DB and tried a booking from Basel Bad Bf to Rothenburg and it gave me only the Dauer Spezial choice for 29E.

When I plugged in my route via Lindau I got that to come up, but it seemed about 1.5-2hrs longer (8:15 trip time through Basel and 9:46-10:15 trip time through Lindau). I didn't plug in local transport, but I'm guessing it would be a bit longer?

Thanks again for your help Lee (and others!)

Info on the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket (Happy Weekend ticket) can be found at http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/prices/germany/swt.shtml. Yes, it is like the Länder tickets and only for regional trains. The route through Basel by regional trains will be longer, so you might condider the Dauer-Spezial tickets because you can use the high speed trains.

You can buy the S-W-T and Bayern-Ticket at any DB station, from an automat, but that does involve deboarding. To my knowledge, you cannot buy them on the train. You can buy them online, but the DB Ticket Shop pages are in German.

Thanks Lee! I'll look a bit more at it this afternoon and report back on what we'll do. Perhaps the Dauer Spezial would be our best bet then. Cost us 14euro more, but save us some time. 8-9 hrs on the train will be long enough!

Lee(or others!)-how does this sound as a plan? When we are in Switzerland, we will use our Swiss Card which we will purchase this next week from ETBD. We will also buy the Dauer Spezial (in the next few weeks) covering us from Basel Bad (that would be our first stop in Germany if I read the DB site correctly) to Rothenburg. While in Switzerland, we would just need to buy a supplement ticket from the Swiss train station to Basel Bad. Is this correct, or am I making this more difficult than it needs to be? Thanks for the help!

Jed

Jed,
I know Lee mentioned the German ticket shop is in German only, but it's fairly easy to use if you feel more comfortable buying your Happy Weekend ticket in advance. There are a number of free translation websites you can open up and copy and paste whatever is showing on the particular web page to figure things out.
I believe if you buy the Lander tickets or Weekend ticket online that you have to buy for a specific day that you'll enter when ordering.
All orders i've made from the DB site have been rec'd in my mail within a few days, very quick service.

Michael-Thank you for the additional info! I think because of the amount of time we'll be on the train, we're just going to buy a Dauer Spezial(when the 90 day window opens) for our leg in Germany. We'll use the Swiss Card to the border, and then get a supplement (prior to our trip) from the border to the first stop in Germany, where our Dauer Spezial will take us the rest of the way.

It's going to be about 14 euro more for both of us compared to the Happy Weekend Ticket, but it should save us a bit of time on the trains. I think I had someone say in a previous post, all I need to do for the supplement from the border to Basel Bad is buy it from any swiss station once we're in the country. I think they also said that Lauterbrunnen doesn't have a manned station, so probably buy one in Zurich when we arrive in Switzerland.

If anyone feels this plan is unsound please let me know and I can adjust it! Like many first time travelers, I am probably stressing over the little details!

Plan on buying today the Dauer Spezial for the Basel Bad/Rothenburg leg of our trip. We are going Lauterbrunnen to Rothenburg (using our Swiss Card to Basel, supplement to Basel Bad, and Dauer Spezial from Basel Bad to Rothenburg). Noticed Andreas' post in the "Basel Bad Bhf vs Basel SBB" post about Swiss border control checking passengers on the ride between Basel and Basel Bad.

Looking at our options for arrival in Basel Bad off Swiss Rail, we can get into BB at 10:41. Train departs to Rothenburg at 11:22. Any problems with only 40 minute connections to deal with border control?

When I look at the DB site for a Lauterbrunnen to Rothenburg ticket and look at the Basel Bad/Rothenburg portion it doesn't give the same possible options as I can find from Basel Bad to Rothenburg if I just look at that as a trip on DB. Wondering if this is because of border control? So how long of a change in Basel Bad should I plan for to be sure to make the next train if there's a problem?

A specific example above is we can take a train from Lauterbrunnen to Basel Bad (off Swiss rail)that arrives 10:41. When I go to DB to select from Basel Bad to Rothenburg, departing at 11:00 I get the ICE 508 that departs at 11:22 and the next is the ICE 72 that departs at 13:13. However, if I plug in on DB Lauterbrunnen to Rothenburg I change trains in Basel SBB and take the ICE 74 which stops in Basel Bad and departs at 11:13. I can't seem to get that one to show up separately (along with a few others). Thanks for any insight!

Jed, you seem to like to explore the schedules. Good.

Go to the Bahn query page, http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en and click on the "arrival/departure" link on the lower RH side. Put in "Basel Bad Bf" for the station, 1100 for the time, and make sure "Departure" is selected. You will see that ICE 74 does leave at 11:13 and ICE 508 leaves at 11:22; both stop in Karlsruhe. Apparently the Bahn scheduler thinks if you are coming from Switzerland and connecting to Rothenburg via Karlsruhe, etc, you should be on ICE 74. I guess the idea of ICE 508, if you are starting at Basel Bad, is to minimize your travel time (but it doesn't matter if you are starting in Lauterbrunnen) but I don't think it really matters which train you take. The scheduler just had to pick one.

Lee,

Thanks for the link on the DB site. We ended up booking the ICE 508 as that was a few minutes later and felt a bit safer with it.

I will use the link from above to help us figure out in my other post the issue with the 4 minute stopover in Frankfurt on our Rothenburg to Bacharach leg. So many tools on the DB site, it's fun to explore!

Often, if there is a regional rail connection (RB, RE, IRE) between two cities and a faster, express rail connection (EC, IC, ICE) between the same two cities at about the same time, Bahn.de will only show the faster express connection. It is often necessary to select "Only local transport" to prevent the express connections from "masking" the regional ones.