Day trip from Lauterbrennen to Montreux

Hello Mary, and welcome! The Swiss timetable will be of great help for planning such trips. It shows traveling times, changes of trains, stops along the way, and so on. Just fill out your departure station (Lauterbrunnen, for example - make sure that it's spelled correctly) and your arrival station (Chateau de Chillon), enter your preferred date and times of traveling, and several options will be displayed. Click 'Show all details' in the lower right corner for more information on each connection. As for your specific questions: you can get to Montreux, visit the castle and return the same day, but you would have to leave early as the quickest connections (via Spiez and Visp, or via Bern and Lausanne) take more than 3 hours for a single journey.

The most beautiful route, however, is the Golden Pass route via Zweisimmen and Gstaad. This connection takes 4 to 5 hours, so you could consider taking it only for either the outbound trip to Montreux or the return journey to Lauterbrunnen. The route can be traveled by regular train or by panoramic train. The panoramic train offers more luxurious seats and larger windows, which allow you to better enjoy the views along the way. Seat reservations are required for Golden Pass panoramic trains. You can (and should) reserve your seats in advance, even if you don't have your Swiss Half Fare Card yet. Seat reservations can be made separately from the actual tickets. So you could even buy your 50% reduction tickets right before boarding, as long as your seats are reserved.

Hi Mary. Major railway stations accept the common types of credit cards, so this shouldn't be a problem. If you have questions about paying at a specific (smaller) railway station, you could best contact the Swiss Railways (SBB).

The Swiss Half Fare Card is valid for all regular boat trips on lake Thun and Brienz. There are special cruises as well, such as dinner cruises, and different rules may apply on them. I think the BLS website will help you out here. It lists departure and traveling times, a price overview, special cruises, and so on.

In my opinion, boat trips at both lake Thun and lake Brienz are wonderful. The attractions you listed are all closer to the lake Brienz than to lake Thun. The Aare gorge is especially suitable for a rainy day (although it's beautiful in sunny weather as well), so if weather is fine you could visit either the Reichenbach falls and/or the Open Air Museum. If you're into waterfalls, you could also get out at Giessbach (a stop along the boat ride over lake Brienz) and get very close to the impressive Giessbach falls. There's a funicular leading up to a hotel/restaurant as well.

Hi Mary,

Yes, it does make much more sense to buy the Swiss Pass now that it is so much cheaper. I just wrote a post about it by the way. Whether it's better than a Swiss Half Fare Card would require you to add up all fares for both passes and see which one is cheaper. The Swiss Pass is definitely more convenient though, as you don't have to buy tickets for each trip: everything on your list can be reached for free, except for the Jungfrau and the upper section of the Schilthorn (they're discounted). You also get other privileges with this offer, as you can read in my post.