I am told this route is complicated...I really would like to train it from Munich to Lucerne in May 2011 one way...as I head from Lucerne to Basel 2 days later to connect to a River cruise. I can't make head nor tail of the various train websites and am not doing much better on the train info on this site. Anyone help? Thanks!
Out of Munich simply take the 7:13am train to Zurich. At Zurich take the 12:04 pm train to Luzern. Total travel time is 5.5 hours. Check schedules at the Swiss Rail site: http://rail.ch
That doesn't sound too bad? If I have a Eurail pass..can I use on this route/these trains? THANK YOU!
Karen, it is not difficult. There are many options but most have only 1 or 2 train changes. Use the website Michael gave you---www.rail.ch. You will see that if you want to change trains only once, you can choose the early departure Michael suggested, or one around noon. In between, there many options with an additional change at Stuttgart or Karlsruhe.
You might question your need for a Eurail pass, at all. If you book well in advance online from the Bahn website, you can get Munich to Luzern for a savings fare of as little as €39 per person. The 12:34 connection is an EC direct to Zürich with a Swiss train to Luzern.
Okay thanks to you both! Good to know it isn't quite as formidable as I thought to get there!
Most of the rail websites follow a fairly simple formula- you type in your departure and destination cities, pick your departure or arrival time and your date of travel, and it will show you the available options that most closely match your choices. No need to figure out connections, these will all be shown for you, even if you need to take a bus, subway or tram for part of the trip. Just make sure you're using the best websites, which are the one's run by the national rail companies, ie Deustche Bahn for Germany, Trentalia for Italy, SBB for Switzerland, etc, and not the third party ticket resellers and travel agencies.
For a little help in using the German Rail website, see my website starting on this page.