Bus St. Moritz to Lugano with Swiss Travel Pass

I want to travel from St. Moritz to Lugano. Looking at the online timetable, it seems I will take rail from St. Moritz to Thusis, bus from Thusis to Bellinzona and rail from Bellinzona to Lugano. From looking at the online timetable it appears seat reservations are compulsory on the bus. The online timetable, has a "Fare/Buy" option. If my understanding is correct, this is for the travel from St. Moritz to Lugano. Is this specific point to point travel included with the Swiss Travel Pass? If so how do I purchase the compulsory seat reservations? I did not see an option to purchase seat reservations. Thank you for your help!

Kindly, CHTrip

Hi CHTrip!

There are two options to get from St. Moritz to Lugano:

• the option via Thusis and Bellinzona you described, which is partly by bus, partly by train;
• a bus ride via Maloja, Chiavenna and Menaggio. No trains are involved here. If you're interested in this alternative, you can enter "Chiavenna" or "Menaggio" as via-stations in the timetable. Most connections require you to change a couple of times, but there's one direct bus ride per day available too: the so-called "Palm Express". It leaves St. Moritz at 12:20 and the trip takes about 4 hours.

Both trips are fully covered by your Swiss Travel Pass, but the bus legs indeed require additional seat reservations. These can be arranged for online in advance. Please find the appropriate information and links at www.myswissalps.com/bu s/reservations.

Does that help you out?

Thank you very much for your helpful reply. I looked at your alternate routes. They all have different advantages!

I checked out both of the links you provided:

www.postauto.ch: Bus route details & seat reservations

www.postauto.ch: Seat reservations for popular bus routes

However, I was not able to locate a screen where I could purchase seat reservations for bus 171 from Thusis to Bellinzona. I was able to locate a table on the www. postauto website directed to travel between Thusis and Bellinzona, but it does not appear to be directed to bus 171. (see attached)

https://www.postauto.c h/en/mandatory-reservations?msq=thusis&=Search

If you have an additional information it would be helpful. Or if you could be so kind to provide a link directed specifically to bus 171, Thusis to Bellinzona, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much for your help.

Kindly, CHTrip

>> However, I was not able to locate a screen where I could purchase seat reservations for bus 171 from Thusis to Bellinzona. I was able to locate a table on the www. postauto website directed to travel between Thusis and Bellinzona, but it does not appear to be directed to bus 171. (see attached)

Hi CHTrip,

Route 171 actually starts in Chur, and is therefore called the Chur–Bellinzona Route. It stops at Thusis en route. The route you found, Route 541 starts in Thusis, but actually follows the same route from there to Bellinzona as Route 171. The stopping patterns and travel time probably differ. You might get a better seat if you take route 541 though! Route 171 will already have passengers on board from Chur when it gets to Thusis. Reservations guarantee a seat, but do not specify a particular seat number.

Here is a link to the page for Route 171:

www.postauto.ch/en/lei sure/chur%E2%80%93bell inzona-route

About halfway down the page there is a paragraph heading "Reservations", with a link to reserve online.

When you follow that link, you get to a page with information about reservations, with a yellow box at the top of the page with the text "Chur–S. Bernardino–Bellinzona". Click on that link, which will take you to a form where you can fill out the From-To details together with date and time.

The "From" field will already be showing "Chur, Postautostation", as that is where the route commences, but you can choose "Thusis, Bahnhof" from the drop-down list. ("Bahnhof" means railway station in German. The railway station at Bellinzona is called "stazione", because Bellinzona is in the Italian-speaking area.)

After filling this out, click on "Find connections" and choose your preferred service. You can then fill in the rest of the details to complete the reservation. (See attached screen capture.) The reservation will be emailed to you.

By the way, there is an audio guide for this route. You can download the audio in advance and listen to it before you go as well as listening en route. It's accessed in the PostBus app, which you can download via this link:

www.postauto.ch/en/tra vel-information_clever-on-the-way_postbus-app

I hope you enjoy the trip!

Alpenrose

Thank you so much for you reply. The information you provided was super helpful and so thorough!

Have a great weekend,

CHTrip