[Henly]

20 January 2020 at 5:04:15 #824942

i am planning to travel from Lucerne to Milano on the Gotthard Express. I live in Australia and would like to what I need to buy and how to book first class tickets on the train. Also is there a ticket that covers the boat and train on one pass.Thank you for you help.

Effortlessly learn from the questions and answers in the forum. Receive a daily e-mail with new discussions. Sign up

[rockoyster]

20 January 2020 at 5:58:01 #928359

G’day Henly and and Welcome to MySwissAlps,

You can buy tickets for the GPEX at http://www.myswissalps.com/gotthardpanoramaexpress/tickets. You need reservations for the train but not for the boat which is just a regular paddle steamer service. Have a look at the other tabs on that page for full details on the GPEX.

You will also want to have a read of http://www.myswissalps.com/traintickets/italy. It’s the opposite direction but the principles are the same.

Are you doing other travel in Switzerland? Will you have any form of travel pass?

If you are travelling with a 2nd Class Swiss Travel Pass but want to travel 1st Class on any particular trip you can buy a Class upgrade at any SBB station or using the SBB Mobile App or here bit.ly/2rZEIXh. You need to buy a route specific upgrade.
http://www.myswissalps.com/swisstravelpass

If you buy on line you need to nominate a Half-fare Card reduction to get the correct price (using either website of SBB app). An upgrade will cost half the difference between 1st and 2nd class full-fares.

[Removed user]

22 January 2020 at 2:58:02 #928360

This is ‘take it or leave it’ advice:

Personally I am sceptical of the attraction of the Gotthard Panorama Express. It is an attempt to keep some tourism going on the Gotthard ‘mountain route’ since the rest of the fast trains now go through the base tunnel. However, you see mainly valleys not high mountains. Also it is reservation obligatory and first class only.

Also, the train gets rather lonely – part of the ‘romance’ of the Gotthard route previously was that your train competed for space on the line with huge long international long-distance trains carrying 000s of passengers a day between northern and southern Europe, and those passenger trains interacted and weaved in between dozens of heavy freight trains lumbering back and forth across the Alps.

The curiosity was seeing another train high above you one minute then a few minutes later passing by your train on the same level, then perhaps seeing it again below you a few minutes after that. It is this that no longer happens as there are so few trains left on the line.

(It could also be argued that it is just a way of finding a use for very expensive panorama cars that Swiss Federal Railways bought but don’t have now have any other use for them…)!

More economical might be for you to take any boat Luzern – Fluelen. Then take the train Fluelen – Erstfeld. Change at Erstfeld into the regional train that takes the same old mountain route but at no extra cost, and runs direct through to Como (and Milano)

Or indeed take the fast train through the base tunnel. There is plenty of scenery before and after the base tunnel transit.

[Removed user]

22 January 2020 at 6:42:14 #928361

Hi Henly,

you can buy your tickets for the Gotthard Panorama Express at http://www.myswissalps.com/gotthardpanoramaexpress/tickets. You’ll need a 1st class ticket or rail pass and seat reservation. If you have a 2nd class rail pass you need to upgrade it to a 1st class. You can do these all on that page.

Ildiko