Train Travel from Interlaken to Paris via Basel SBB

When you purchase your tickets, just purchase tickets from Basel to Paris via the website; it will give more flexibility. From Interlaken to Basel purchase your tickets at the station on the day of your journey. For domestic intercity trains in Switzerland advance reservations for specific trains isn't possible.

Platforms 30-35 of Basel station are actually the SNCF (French rail) platforms. There is a frontier post between them and the rest of the station as you are crossing from Switzerland into France. I did it the other way a few years ago and was quizzed for about ten minutes about what I had in my luggage. Since then Switzerland has joined the Schengen agreement, but I would leave longer than 7 minutes to make a connection, as it only needs some border guard to think you look suspicious or just decide that it's time to **** with somebody, and you've missed your train.

Thanks for the quick posts. It's helpful to know that 7 minutes may not be sufficient.

As I do more searches, I am noticing something else. The Swiss site seems to allow this connection on dates prior to the summer schedule. I am traveling in late June, and so far those schedules do not connect well in Basel. However, prior to mid-June, the schedule does connect.

I'm still not clear whether I will need to get off the train and go through the border crossing or whether I can stay on the train and deal with it there. Perhaps there is an issue with the summer schedule not yet being properly posted/updated.

In any case, I am hoping for a quick connection in Basel. I don't want to have to wait for the next TGV and lose an hour just because the connection is a couple of minutes too tight. Typically, schedules are synchronized for connections.

Thanks for the advice on buying my ticket to Basel separately. I just want to get the best price. If there is no price advantage to buying that ticket in advance, then perhaps I'll wait. I'll do more ticket searches to verify the different prices.

• David

I just checked the SBB site and found that trains with a 7-minute connection time are listed if both the arrival point and the departure point are Basel SBB. If a 10-minute walk between the Swiss and French sides of the station is listed, then the connection time between trains is at least 15 minutes.

New timetables for nearly all of Europe will go into effect on 13 June. When the new timetables are uploaded, you should see a complete list of departure times like you can see now for any date up to 12 June. Times are likely to change by only a few minutes, if at all.

You can get discount fares for Interlaken-Paris by booking the entire trip on the SBB site. Check the site about once a week and book as soon as your preferred departure time and route appears.

Strange. I did an Interlaken-Basel-Paris trip in October, and all I did was change trains. There wasn't anything about "GL 30-35" either. The other direction we connected in Bern. If you are unsure about the Basel connection, you do have other options, like Bern.

You should also be able to buy these through SNCF. I priced mine both on SNCF and SBB and the price was identical. SBB is easier if you aren't comfortable navigating a French site, though.

If you book from Interlaken, you'll have to book thru SBB...SCNF (or TGV-Europe) won't be able to get your tickets to you in Switzerland, unless you have them mailed to your hotel.