Using rail to travel in and around Paris and Bernese Oberland

When are you taking this trip? While the standard 2nd class train fare for Paris-Interlaken ranges from €95 to €126, if you book far enough in advance (up to three months allowed) at tgv-europe.com, you can get a discount fare as low as €44. To keep the site in English and to avoid being bumped to the Rail Europe site which doesn't offer discount fares, choose Great Britain as both your country of residence and the country in which you will retrieve your tickets. You will be able to pick up your tickets at any SNCF station or boutique in France, even though you originally chose Great Britain.

If you can get those discount fares, then a France-Switzerland Pass probably won't be a good deal, but either a Swiss Pass or a Swiss Card probably will be. (Click on the Railpasses tab at the top of the page to learn more.)

For Paris the best transportation pass, if any, depends upon what days of the week you'll be there. Sometimes it's better to buy ten-ticket carnets and share the tickets, especially if you like walking. For all your pass and ticket choices, with links to detailed explanations of each one, go here.

The rail gurus on this site can probably offer a more definative answer, but if your trip only includes Paris and the Berner Oberland, one single pass covering the entire trip may not be economical. For your time in Switzerland, I believe there is a pass that covers both rail and cable car service. This may make more sense for you, depending exactly on what your plans. But the rail gurus will have more information...

Thanks. Am eager to hear from the rail gurus! I was surprised at how expensive the round trip train was from Paris to Bern! I assume from there my purchase of some type of Swiss pass is then most economical??

I think the only passes you might consider are the Swiss ones, and that depends on how many "we" are and exactly how many train, lift, & funicular trips you will take in Switzerland.

You might also want to look into (1) an early flight to your airport from Zurich, in lieu of that redundant trip and overnight stay in Paris, or (2) the fee to change your ticket to fly home from Zurich.

Sounds like a very fun trip, have a great time!

I have a similar problem.
I purchased a three country Select Saver pass and am now reserving my seats on the various legs of my trip through Italy, Switzerland, and France. Each seat in First Class was $15 until I tried to book the TGV from Zurich to Paris. They want $141 each. Has anyone else had this big price jump? How can I get to a site other than RailEurope to reserve the seats at a lower price?

Wow! I certainly appreciate all the helpful responses. Let me give more details in case anyone has additional information. There are three of us - my husband and I and our adult daughter, 24 years old. We leave Pittsburgh on August 12 and arrive in Paris on Aug. 13. The reason we are going roundtrip to Paris is because Delta just began a nonstop service there from Pittsburgh and had a great promotional fare. It's also because I wasn't really thinking totally clearly about having to return to Paris! We will be in Paris from Aug 13 - Aug 17 and then staying in the Steve's rec'd hotel in Lauterbrunnen, Switz. from the 17th to the 20th. I like the idea of flying into Paris from Switzerland. I will check into it. Is Zurich the best to fly from if in the Bernese Oberland or is Bern? Also, our flight on the 21st leaves at 10:40am, so not a lot of extra time to play with in the morning. Again, thanks for the extremely helpful comments.

Kathy,

Given that you'll only be taking a few rail journeys, buying 2nd Class P-P tickets as Tim recommended is probably your best option. I had a brief look at the RailEurope web site and the least expensive France-Switzerland Pass is listed at US$573. As I recall, anyone over about 26 years is required to buy a First Class Pass, and of course this wouldn't include reservation fees.

Although having a Swiss Pass would provide discounts on some of the local transportation and lifts, you'll have to weigh this in terms of how much you'll be using the lifts and how much this might save you. With only 4-days in the Berner Oberland, I'm not sure the Pass would provide significant savings to offset the high cost of the Pass.

If you take an hour or so to stop at an SNCF Boutique when you first arrive in Paris, I'm sure they'd be able to help you sort out the best options. They're located all over Paris, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding one. Check their web site for a Map so you can see which one is closest to your Hotel. When you arrive in Interlaken, buy your ticket for the return trip (although you may be able to buy both tickets at the SNCF Boutique).

When you buy your ticket, note that your destination will be Interlaken Ost. My preference for that route would be a train departing Paris Est at 08:24, arriving Interlaken Ost at 13:57 (time 5H:33M, 1 change in Basel, Reservations compulsory, via TGV & ICE). I used an arbitrary date to check this, so it could be different at the time you're travelling.

Where are you going to be staying in the Berner Oberland?

Hope this helps.

Happy travels!

Kathy,

You won't be in Paris the right days of the week to benefit from a Carte Orange loaded on a passe Navigo Decouverte.

The Paris Visite pass is overpriced.

Paris is a great walking city so you might not take as many metro or bus rides as you anticipated. I suggest that you buy ten-ticket carnets (€11.60) as needed and share the tickets. On any given day that you know you will take more than five rides, buy zone 1-2 Mobilis passes (€5.90) for that day and save the tickets from your carnets for another day.

With your flight home leaving at 10:40, you'll definitely need to spend the previous night in Paris.

Mayanna,

According to this page on the Railpasses section of this site, you should pay $31 for a 1st class reservation for an international TGV (€20 if you buy it in Europe).

I have seen the same list of prices and thought they were reasonable which is why I am so confused about this $282 price for two seat reservations. I am calling Rail Europe tomorrow to find out why.

Thanks for your input.

Just wanted to update you on my call to RailEurope this morning. Apparently, the reason I could not reserve seats using my passholder option was that they had sold out the seats for passholders on that train, however Amin with RailEurope was able to find out that the leg from Zurich to Strasbourg was okay, so we booked that and took a slightly later train from Strasbourg to Paris so, except for one more train change, all is well now. We still get to Paris in plenty of time to take the Eurostar to London.