Has anybody done this trip by train. We are travelling in August . For Colmar to Annecy to we have to backtrack to Strasbourg , then Lyons before train to Annecy? How frequent are the trains?
Secondly the train from Annecy to Montreux, is that via Geneva ?
Any help appreciated. We have 10 train days in 2 months ( spending a few days in each place) is it worth getting a Eurail pass. We are travelling France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
The deutsche bahn website is the best source for determining what routes are available, although you won't be able to buy all your tickets from that website.
Regarding a pass, the only one way to determine whether it's worth it is to figure the cost of the individual segments and do the math. One caution: France (and apparently some other countries) limit the number of seats available to passholders, sometimes severely. In my experience, that meant at one point in France I had to buy a full price ticket instead of using my pass. The seats that were available (many) were not available to passholders. That left me with an unused segment on the pass at the end of the trip, so I paid twice for that segment... paying for the pass segment and then having to buy a ticket anyway. It meant that I lost money having the pass, compared to what I would've paid for individual tickets.
Posted by
Green Bay
21155 posts
All of the solutions given by Deutsche Bahn collapse after June 14. That is a hint that the French railway summer schedule is not finalized yet. Annecy is not well connected on the rail network. Many solutions include a bus connection. Raileurope is liable to show only a fraction of the possible itineraries.
Posted by
Vienna, Austria
5510 posts
To best advise on a pass vs. point to point tickets, it would be helpful to have your itinerary for those 10 train days.
Posted by
Fountain Valley, California
31 posts
Can't speak for the Colmar to Annecy leg, but we will be doing the Annecy to Montreux leg in about a month. We will report on how it went.
Our goal is to board a Golden Pass Panoramic train to Interlaken.
Although Europe is well-connected, this is one area where it's a bit hop-skip-jump. The French train out of Annecy drops you off at the last French station in Switzerland. From there you take a bus to a Geneva station, but not the one you want. Then it's a ride on a street tram to the Geneva-Cornavin station where you catch a train to Montreux. The bahn.com web site shows this and describes all the connections. The story is that they are working on a through line but don't expect it up and running until 2016.
This is another way, though:
The rome2rio web site shows a possible route, going a bit away from your destination from Annecy to Aix-les-Bains-le-Revard by train in order to catch a faster train that goes directly from Aix-les-Bains-le-Revard to Geneva-Cornavin, eleminating the bus and tram changes. If you happen to hit the right timing, this may be a less hectic way to go. It didn't save us time with our particular schedule so we chose the hop-skip-jump - should be interesting.