Planning a trip to the northern Italian Lake region and Switzerland in early October. Looking for recommendation on what mode of transportation is best when I'm looking to go from Italy and finish the second half of my trip in Switzerland. I've seen buses and boats for day trips across the border. What do you all think is a good choice.
Thanks!
We did a loop starting and ending at Milan MXP. However, we drove and included what we wanted to experience and it was terrific.
Milan, Lake Orta, Grindelwald, Pontresina, Lake Como, MXP.
Trains are easy and efficient but where, exactly, in Switzerland do you want to go and where will you be, exactly, in Italy?
An example of transit times via train would be
Varenna on Lake Como to Lauterbrunnen in the spectacular Berner Oberland Via Milan: 4 trains, almost 6 hours
Stresa on Make Maggiore to Lauterbrunnen is 3 trains, <3 hours
Stresa to Luzern is 2 trains, a bit over 3 hours
Lugano on Lake Lugano to Luzern, 1 or 2 trains, a bout 2 hours
So where from and to? You can play around online at www.rome2rio.com or www.sbb.ch, the Swiss train company.
We did the Stresa-to-Lauterbrunnen train route, or in our case up to Wengen as our final destination. If you do that route, just be sure to switch trains at the “Interlaken OST” train stop, not the first one in Interlaken. The route is easy by train, and you wouldn’t want a car up in Wengen.
Beautiful locations on both ends of that trip!
Thanks to all of you. Excellent info.
Reading the above reminds me of why we drive. Simpler and no connections plus if the weather is clear you have the option of going over the St. Gotthard Pass, not under it in a 20 mile long tunnel. My recommendation is drive if you can.
I've done trips in both directions.
From Luzern, Switzerland by regular train to Lugano on Lake Lugano and then train back to fly out of Zurich.
From Varenna on Lake Como by train to Tirano and from there by Bernina Express to St Moritz, Switzerland. From St Moritz I took the Palm Express bus back down to Lugano and a regular train from there to fly out of Milan.
Both the train to St Moritz and the bus from St Moritz were stunningly scenic!
