Ponte Vecchio
Traveling My Way – Finding Flights and booking Hotel Rooms
December 3, 2017
Florence Italy Skyline
Traveling My Way – Preparing for the trip
December 26, 2017
Traveling by Train in Switzerland

Traveling by Train in Switzerland

Part 4

This is probably the most challenging, frustrating, and fun part of the planning process of the trip. I have never traveled on a train in The US even though I have lived here for over 60 years. But I have fallen in love with the trains in Europe. I have been to Europe twice and was fascinated with traveling on their trains. On our first trip to Europe in 2013 I booked one train trip ahead of time. I found one train between Barcelona, Spain and Montpelier, France that you did not have to change trains. When I first started looking the times you had to change trains terrified me. When you have never traveled by train and the 5 to 8 minute times to get off one train and get on another one to me was a ridiculous proposition, so when I saw the one direct train I jumped on it. I have flown many times in the past 35 years and very seldom do you have less than an hour to change planes. When we went on our next trip to Italy in 2015 I booked several train trips in advance. I made sure to make sure I had a 30 minute window to change trains. Those 25 minutes waiting on the next train was the most boring part of the trip. So don’t let the short change times scare you. You can’t lounge on the train for long anyway because they do not stay in the station for long, usually 5 minutes.

I went to google and typed in something like how to travel by train in Germany, then Switzerland and Italy. Italy seemed much easier but I’m not sure if this is because it is easier or because on our last trip we were in Italy for the entire trip. There are several web sites with tons of invaluable information on train travel. The man in seat 61 at seat61.com has tons of information on how to travel by train, how to book tickets and the difference types of trains in each country. Rick Steves at ricksteves.com has lots of information and there are more. I went to these sites and a couple of others until I was comfortable going to the railroad sites and booking trains. To save some money I went to the train company in each country and booked there. There also is a US based web site raileurope.com. This site will cost you a little more but takes some of the frustration out of the process. For my first trip before to Europe I used this website to book one round trip train trip.

On my second trip to Europe. I used two websites, trenitalia.com which is the website of the Italian state owned rail line. I clicked on the British flag in the upper right hand corner for English. They also have a website, www.italiarail.com that looks like it is made for the English speaking but I have not used it. The second is italotreno.it which is a private owned train company in Italy that offers high speed train service between the larger cities in Italy. There is one catch to using these websites. You have to enter the Italian spelling of some of the major cities, except for italarail, which uses the English names, to book travel online to these cities. For instance Rome is Roma, Milan is Milano. Florence is Firenze and Venice is Venezia. I will go over all of this as I book my train travel. Also the German rail site is DB Bahn at http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de and http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en?ld=std2.a& is your website to book travel in Switzerland. These 2 sites and trenitalia.com were the sites I used to book my train travel through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. They each seem to have some idiosyncrasies. For instance when I travel from Cochem Germany to Lucerne Switzerland I will book the entire journey on the German website. When I book my travel from Lucerne to Florence Italy, I am going to book on the Swiss site to a town just inside the border of Italy and then get on the Italian site to book the rest of the trip. You can book your trip only from 60 to 90 days out but you can go to the websites ahead of time and put in a date a month out to get an idea of the routes, costs and travel time. The regional short distance trains I will book when I get to the train station. For longer distance high speed trains I booked ahead of time. In Italy you can save some money by booking high speed trains in advance. They have super saver prices starting 3 months out and get more expensive as the tickets sell and you get closer to travel time.

For this trip I have done research and some math on train travel costs and I bought a Eurail pass that covers Germany, Switzerland and Italy. I wentbback later and booked reservations on most of the trains.

I first went to each of the state owned sites in the 3 countries that I will be visiting. I tallied up the point to point ticket costs for all of the train travel I am planning. The total cost is $1376.68. The costs for the Switzerland tickets were by far the most expensive. After a little more research it looks like Switzerland is a good country to buy a rail pass for. So I factored in a Swiss Travel pass, and reservation cost for the Golden Pass line I am going to take. This brought my total down a little to $1339.72. After a little research I found out that you can buy a Eurail pass specifically for just Germany, Switzerland and Italy. There are many other combinations for single country passes and passes for 2, 3 & 4 countries. And you can buy one for all 28 European countries that participate. For the price of this 3 country rail pass and reservations my train travel expense went down a good bit. I at first considered an 8 day pass that you can take up to 2 months to use. Since I will be in Europe for 14 days this is plenty of time and the continuous use passes to cover 14 days were more expensive. 8 days was the most we would travel by train. 6 days for sure and the next 2 would be short regional trains depending on how tired we are and if we are wanting more train travel. I then checked on the cost of the 6 day pass over 2 months and it is $140 less. The 2 regional trips we considered would only cost a total of around 70 EU. So now with the 6 pass, reservations and the cost of 2 additional days of travel My cost is $1039.44. Now with the plane tickets hotel and train travel estimated costs for travel and lodging is $5,264.51. This leaves $2,735.49 for additional travel costs, souvenirs and dining and a few extra things to take with us. This should leave me slightly under my budget.

On February 20, 2017 I booked 2 Eurail passes for $848.00 This was a 6 day pass for Rosita and me, plus ticket insurance in case of loss or stolen tickets. I went ahead and bought now because Eurail is having a plus 1 day promotion. This will be 6 days plus an extra day that can be used in Germany, Italy and Switzerland during a 2 month period.

Booking Train tickets in Germany

The only trip I booked ahead for Germany was the reservations for Cochem Germany to Lucerne(Luzern) Switzerland on September 27. This will cost a total of 11,80 EU. On 4/23/17 I made reservations for the Koblenz to Basel Switzerland part of the trip. For Cochem to Koblenz leg and for Basel to Lucerne reservations could not be made. When we arrive in Frankfurt Germany on September 23, I will go to the train station at the airport and either just hop on a train or look into purchasing reservations to Cochem. The reservations at the train station will not cost me any more than booking them earlier online and because of the way some flight travel is delayed, we could possibly get there later. In addition on one of the days in Cochem we plan to take a train to Bingen or Rudesheim Germany and take a 3 or 4 hour boat cruise on the Rhine River. One day will be dedicated to wandering around Cochem and the Reichsburg Castle that overlooks Cochem. This will be covered in the pass and we will decide while there if we will buy reservations. For the third full day we will decide then on what to do. If we take a short regional train we will buy the ticket and not use the pass.

Booking Train tickets in Switzerland

The plans are on September 28 to take a scenic Golden Pass railroad trip to Montreux, Switzerland. I was listening to a podcast on what to do in Switzerland and someone who had lived in Switzerland said that in his opinion the most scenic train route in Switzerland was the Golden Pass route from Interlaken to Montreux. After looking up information I found that the Golden Pass route actually runs form Lucerne(Luzern) to Montreux. And since I am staying in Lucerne(Luzern) and I want to see some of the more scenic parts of Switzerland this route to me is a no brainer. This route takes a little over 5 hours. You can take a direct route back to Lucerne(Luzern) that will take about 2 and a half hours. So far everything I have read states 99% of trains in Switzerland do not need a reservation. On the Zweisimmen to Montreux route reservations are recommended but not required. The Golden Pass line is made up of 3 different segments run by 3 different companies and each uses different rail cars. The lines are Montreux to Zweisemmen, Zweisemmen to Interlaken and Interlaken to Lucern. Right now I am leaning to purchasing reservations for this trip but will decide later on. On the trip back to Lucern I will probably not. The 29th will be dedicated to sightseeing in Lucern(Luzern). Then on the 30th I will use my Eurail Train Pass to go to Dommodosolo, Italy. From Domodosolo I will buy reservations to Florence(Firenze) Italy from the Italian web site. After looking a little further, I checked on trains from Lucerne to Chiasso Switzerland and from Chiasso to Florence Italy. It looks like this route will take a little less time and cost a little less. Even though Chiasso is in Switzerand and Domodossolo is in Italy, Chiasso is closer to Milan and both routes will go through Milan, Italy. On most of the legs from Lucerne, Switzerland to Chiasso, Italy you can’t reserve a seat. We plan on going to the railroad and hop on one around 8:00 AM and getting to Chiasso a little after 11:00 AM. This will give us a little over 2 hours for lunch. We can eat a a restaurant near the train station or take a short walk to Como, Italy for lunch. Our train to Milan will leave at 1:52 PM and the details are in the next section.

Booking Train tickets in Italy

Since I have already been to Italy and rode on roughly 20 trains during 2 weeks there I am a little more confident about booking train travel here. The only trips I have planned in Italy will be the continuing of my trip to Florence Italy and the trip form Florence to Venice. This will be from Chiasso Switzerland to Florence. Some of the trains to Milan are Regional and some are Eurocity. If the one we take is a Regional we will just hop on and go to Milan. If it is a Eurocity, we will have to make reservations. And the train from Milan to Florence will be a high speed train so I will have to purchase reservations. We will also be traveling on a high speed train to Venice from Florence and will have to purchase reservations. I will go ahead and make these reservations 2 to 3 months before the trip. If we take 1 or 2 short regional trips from Florence we will buy point to point tickets at the train station. These will more than likely be on Regional trains and these are not cheaper if you book them ahead of time. We don’t plan to take any train trips while in Venice(Venezia) except to travel there.

On June 11 I booked reservations on a train from Chiasso Switzerland to Milan, Italy and from Milan to Florence Italy. I booked these on trenitalia.com and the total costs was 40 Euro. Also on June 11 I booked a reservation form Florence(Firenze) Italy to Venice(Venezia) Italy. We will leave Florence at 9:30 AM and arrive in Venice at 11:35 AM., just in time to get to the hotel and then enjoy an nice lunch at at a restaurant near the hotel.

So now my bullet points look like this

  1. Fly into Frankfurt, Germany
  2. Take a train from Frankfurt Airport to Cochem Germany and spend 4 nights there
  3. Take a cruise on the Rhine River and tour a castle or 2
  4. Eat some German Sausage and Drink some German Beer.
  5. Tour the Reichsburg castle above Cochem
  6. Take a train to Lucern(Luzern) Switzerland and spend 3 nights there
  7. Take a scenic train trip from Lucerne(Luzern) to Montreux Switzerland
  8. Take a boat ride and go sightseeing in Lucerne(Luzern)
  9. Take a train to Florence Italy and spend 4 nights there
  10. See the Statue of David
  11. Take a Italian cooking class
  12. Eat a tripe sandwich
  13. Take at least one train ride to a small town near Florence(Firenze)
  14. Take a train to Venice Italy and spend 3 nights there
  15. Get lost while wandering around Venice(Venezia) Italy
  16. Take a boat to Murano and watch them blow glass statues
  17. Fly home to New Orleans

This is as detailed as my plans will get until I am on the trip. My next step is going over the preparation for the trip and then I am planning on keeping up with how successful the planning was and how my budget worked out.
As for as planning while on the trip. We like to spend a few minutes each evening looking up things to do based on things we have seen during the day or the proceeding day or 2. As you see things on the trip you will see things you want to explore further. You can also learn about things from people you will see in the hotel and waiters at restaurants you eat at. Many cities in Europe have tourist centers that can give great advice on things to see. Everyone is different and some people, like me, like to do alot of planning by the seat of your britches. Other people like to plan out every small detail and most people are somewhere in between. I like to have some open time so I can add last minute things or to just sit and people watch. You will see some interesting people in Europe if you do this.

Next Part 5 Preparing For the Trip

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