[Removed user]

2 August 2022 at 2:53:42 #827949

Hello fellow travelers.

My wife and I and child wish to reserve seats on the Bernina Express from Chur to Tirana for December 20, but reservations on the site are only available for dates through December 10. So I have two questions:

1. When do reservations beyond December 10 become available?

2. How quickly do reservations fill up for late December once they become available?

This is a bit of a conundrum for us because it looks like, due to the above, we may have to reserve flights to Switzerland before reserving the Bernina Express, but don’t want to go to Switzerland if we cannot include the Bernina Express on our itinerary.

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[Anna]

2 August 2022 at 14:18:27 #945053

Hi Leon,

Welcome to MySwissAlps.

You can make seat reservations on the Bernina Express up to 3 months in advance. More information is available here: http://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress/tickets

There are limited Bernina Express service in winter so seats are limited too: https://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress/gettingthere. So try to book as soon as possible.

As an alternative, you might want to consider other panoramic trains such as the Glacier Express and the Golden Pass from Montreux to Zweisimmen.

Hope this helps in some ways.

regards,

Anna

[Removed user]

2 August 2022 at 19:50:03 #945054

Thank you Anna for the information. Okay, I will look again for Dec 20 reservation availability on Sept 20 then once it is within three months. In the chance that reservations sell out quickly, do the alternatives you mentioned also go from Chur to Tirano, and on the same rail/route?

[Removed user]

2 August 2022 at 21:03:15 #945055

To give you a bit of background, Chur – St Moritz (The Unesco heritage Albula Railway) and St Moritz – Tirano are actually separate railways (St Moritz – Tirano is the true Bernina Railway (a separate company until 1947) .

However the morning direct Bernina Express runs 365 days a year from Chur to Tirano.

But you can also do the same journey in separate trains if you wish, for example by staying a night in Samedan or St Moritz (which can be quite a good idea in winter due to the short number of hours of daylight

[Removed user]

2 August 2022 at 21:28:12 #945056

Personally I wouldn’t consider the Glacier Express or Golden Pass as alternatives to the |Bernina Express in December! The Bernina railway is the highest altitude transalpine railway in Europe which doesn’t have a tunnel at the summit. Hence December is a great time to travel on the Bernina Express

[Arno]

3 August 2022 at 6:06:18 #945057

Hi Leon,

The eastern leg of the Glacier Express route overlaps with part of the Bernina Express route:

• https://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress/gettingthere
• https://www.myswissalps.com/glacierexpress/gettingthere

The GoldenPass route is explained here:

• https://www.myswissalps.com/goldenpass

Which scenery to expect is a bit hard to tell. December is at the beginning of the winter season, and it’s hard to predict at which altitudes there will be snow by that time. If you’re lucky, it will have started snowing in lower regions too. I think each of these three routes is beautiful and each so in its own way:

• https://www.myswissalps.com/besttimetovisit/winter
• https://www.myswissalps.com/weather/winter

In case you’re considering regular trains at the Bernina Express route, you can find the differences between those and the Bernina Express trains explained at https://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress.