How to come back after traveling Glacier Express
A traveler is planning a trip with their family, including two adults and two children, to Switzerland during the Christmas holiday. They intend to take the Glacier Express from Zermatt to St. Moritz and are unsure about the best way to return on the same day. They are seeking advice on what to do after reaching St. Moritz and whether a same-day return is possible.
- The Glacier Express is not suitable for a same-day round trip due to its 8-hour journey time; consider staying overnight in St. Moritz instead for a more enjoyable experience.
- If you must return the same day, consider getting off the Glacier Express in Chur and taking the quickest route back to Zermatt, although you will need multiple train changes.
- There are no overnight trains available, so plan your return carefully to avoid traveling in the dark with no views.
AI-generated summary-
Hi,me and my family (2 adults, 1 youth 1 child) are planning to travel with the Glacier Express at Christmas Holiday. We have never been at Switzerland before.
We are going to stay in Zermatt, and traveling from there to St Moritz by the Glacier Express. So, after arriving in St. Moritz,what should we do in order to come back? is it possible to return in the same day?
-
Hi Marilia,
Welcome to MySwissAlps! The Glacier Express is not really suitable for a day trip from one base. It takes too long for that: about 8 hours. So most people use it only one way, to travel to another part of the country. By time you reach St. Moritz it will be 5 PM and dark. The timetable for December and beyond is not available yet, but most probably there won’t be an option to travel back all the way to Zermatt on the same day. If there would be an option, you would arrive after midnight and travel in the dark, so no views.
You can spend the night in St. Moritz to make this more enjoyable: myswissalps.com/ stmoritz/ hotels. Part of the Glacier Express can be done as a day trip from one base town (see the Glacier Express page), but Zermatt is not the best base for that. You could go only as far as Chur and travel back from there, but you would miss the nice scenery of the last leg.
Does this help you out?
I totally agree with you about not being suitable for a day trip, but unfortunately, we don’t have enought time to do all we want…so, iIn case of doing such madness, of coming back in the same day/night, how should we procedure, which trains and destinations should we take to shorten the return (even considereing that we are going to spend all night long in a train trip…)? is there any overnigh/sleeper train?
Hi Marilia,
There are no overnight trains. You can pick one of the options I explained about in my previous post: stay the night in St. Moritz, or get off the Glacier Express in Chur and travel back to Zermatt from there via the quickest route (you’ll reach back about 9:00 PM).
The last train from st Moritz is 16:53 and you need 4 changes to reach zermatt at 23:36. This was based on 1st December as timetable not available yet. The glacier express does not arrive in st Moritz till 17:03 so you only option is to get off early Idelly somewhere you can easily get food and go for a walk before the return. Timetable for winter glacier express is available http://www.glacierexpress.ch/ EN/timetable_tickets/T imetable/winter/Pages/ default.aspx
- The thread ‘How to come back after traveling Glacier Express’ is closed to new replies.
