Hi
We are planning to stay in Grindelwald for 7 days. We will go to nearby places using public transport. Then we will head to Italy. Planning to take a train from Grindelwald to Milan (SBB) and then Milan to Cinque terre (will book from rometorio website). We will also travel from Cinque Terre to Florence, Florence to Naples and Naples to Rome by Train.
Should we make point to point reservations or should we take Rail pass? Please advise.
There are several direct Intercity trains from Milano Centrale to Monterosso each day, avoid re-sellers and book with the company running those trains: www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en
Monterosso is the biggest of the 5 villages.
You'd better learn and use italian station names. Florence is Either Firenze SM Novella or Firenze Campo di Marte. Naples is Napoli Centrale. Rome is either Roma Termini or Roma Tiburtina, depending on where you are staying.
From Firenze to Napoli and from Napoli to Roma you can take trenitalia's high speed trains, called Freccia-something.
Pass holders must pay 10 € per person per leg to reserve a seat and take Freccia trains, 3 € pp for Intercity trains. In short, in Italy with a pass you can freely board only the cheap and slow Regionale trains that have no reserved seats and can't sell out.
Both Italotreno and Trenitalia sell discounted tickets for advance purchases, but bear in mind that the cheapest tickets can't be changed or refunded. On-day prices are always displayed in advance, as BASE on trenitalia.com and as FLEX on Italotreno.it/en
Passes are not accepted:
Passes are not good value in Italy. As Dario says, buy advance tickets from the Trenitalia website as early as possible to get the cheapest tickets.
The problem is Trenitalia does not show foreign trains, it will not even recognise Grindelwald as a station.
In order to find trains from Grindelwald to Milan, go to the SBB website ( https://www.sbb.ch/en ) and do a search from Grindelwald to Milano Centrale.
Ticketing for this depends on whether you are getting a pass for Switzerland, and whether you do that depends on what other trips you are making to get to Grindelwald and when you get there. Without details it is impossible to decide.
If you are not getting a pass, just buy a ticket from Grindelwald to Milano Centrale on the SBB website.
If you are getting a Swiss Pass, this is valid up to Domodossola which is the border station. A Swiss pass is valid to Domodossola, you then need to buy a ticket on the Trenitalia website from Domodossola to Milano Centrale.
While Rome2Rio is a great tool for initial research, you should never take it as authoritative, and never book from them. Instead, use it to direct you to the actual operator of the flight, bus, train, etc, and book directly from them.
You've already been given good advice for your Italian trains. For Switzerland, with 7 days you will probably want some kind of pass. The choices are a Swiss Travel Pass, a Half Fare Card, a Berner Oberland Pass, or the Jungfrau Travel Pass. If you're not going to be in other parts of Switzerland, the Jungfrau Travel Pass is probably the easiest and best deal for a Grindelwald-based trip. Details here: https://www.myswissalps.com/jungfrautravelpass
The Berner Oberland Pass covers a larger area, although it has different coverage than the Jungfrau Pass (some things that are fully covered with one are only discounted or not covered with the other). Details here: https://www.myswissalps.com/regionalpassberneseoberland/validity
The Swiss Pass covers the entire country, but it has only 25%-50% off the trains above Wengen or Grindelwald, so it's less useful than the Jungfrau Travel Pass for a Grindelwald-based stay.
The Half Fare Card costs 120 CHF and gets you 50% off of anything that moves in the whole country. Advantage is that if you're taking more than 240 CHF of transit, you can't lose (so no complex calculations). Disadvantage is that you have to buy tickets every time (not hard, as all machines have a "Half Fare/Child Fare" option for every ticket). When using a Pass, you only have to buy tickets for items not fully covered; for everything else, you just hop on, and show your Pass when asked. Technically, you have to show your passport when using the Pass; this is rarely asked for, but you should have it handy just in case (fines are very high for breaking the rules in Switzerland).
Yes, it IS complicated to figure out the best option. But any of them are likely better than paying full fares each time for a 7 day stay!
Thanks Chris and Harold! I will follow your suggestions! This helps a lot!
Thanks Dario!
We are in Switzerland (Grindelwald area ) for 7 nights 8 days. We won't travel outside Oberland area much. We plan to do hiking, visit nearby places and Jungfraujoch. We are leaning towards buying Swiss Travel pass as there is not much of a price difference between this and Oberland pass. Plus the Swiss travel pass will cover our travel from Zurich to Bern (184 euros) on way to Grindelwald and from Grindelwald to Italy border. Let me know if this is a good option.
