Traveling from Zurich to Greece

Carol, IMO, it would be a MUCH better idea to travel by air from Zurich to Greece. As I recall, Greece has suspended operation of some international trains this year as a "cost cutting" measure. From Zurich you could use either Vueling (layover in Barcelona) or Swiss / Edelweiss. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any of the "budget" airlines operate from Zurich, so the flights may be a bit pricey. It would help to know whether you have to return to Zurich for your flight home? Also, could you elaborate on where you're planning to travel in Greece? Cheers!

It is my intent to fly home from Athens. I plan to island hop in Greece. I will visit Mykonos, Paros maybe Santorini and around Athens. I am really in no rush. My conference ends on July 18th and I don't have to be home until the end of July

Please take a look at a map to see all the countries you will have to traverse to get from Zurich to Greece. This is not an easy journey and it will eat up quite a bit of your time leaving less time to island hop. You will have to spend the money and fly unless you are really adventurous and want to travel through the Balkan countries.

Agree. Flying seems the only logical option – Swiss flies NS to Athens in 2:35. You could probably patch together a train or train/ferry option, but it would take forever and would wear you out – you're talking about traversing half the continent.

No reason you couldn't do a combination of train and plane or train and ferry. Depends on which countries you want to see. You could go south to Italy - there are direct trains from Zurich to Milan. You could then travel through Italy and pick up the ferry to Athens from Bari. You could go east to Austria and Hungary, maybe flying to Athens out of Vienna or Budapest (see whichbudget.com for cheap airfares). Again, there's a direct train from Zurich to Vienna, although I'd be inclined to stop off in Innsbruck. Instead of flying you could continue south by train to Belgrade and Sofia or Skopje. But note that the Greek government has canceled ALL international trains - you can no longer take the train from Sofia or Skopje to Thessaloniki, but apparently you can take a bus from Skopje. See http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml for train schedules and seat61.com for loads of European train info. And this site, of course.

Thank you everyone. It seems that from the responses I will probably fly into Greece. I was looking forward to seeing the countryside since I am not going to be in that region again for a long time. Time is not an issue but if the trains are not entering then I will use more time in the Greek isles. Thank you again

If time isn't an issue, and you want to see some countryside, I can't think why you wouldn't take the train at least part of the way.