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Hello!
I am travelling to Switzerland in June, however I don’t know how to choose the best rail pass for my time there.
This is my itinerary:
June 8: Arrive in Zurich at 9am. Take the day to visit
June 9: leave Zurich around noon to Interlaken if there’s a train that goes there? And I visit Interlaken in the afternoon/evening
June 10-11: Interlaken. Visit and do activities in Interlaken and go to lauterbrunnen
June 12: leave Interlaken to Lucern in the morning so I have almost all day to be in Lucerne
June 13: I want to go the the Mt.Pilatus and leave for Berlin in the evening
I don’t know if I should take the swiss travel pass or the half pass for this trip?
As the swiss travel pass is only available for 4 or 8 days and I’ll be there 6 days
I would also like to know how it works if I want a train pass from lucerne to berlin?
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Hello inataalie and Welcome to MySwissAlps,
A clearly mapped out itinerary will provide you with the basis for deciding which pass (if any) suits.
Using your itinerary you need to do the sums based on the cost of all your planned trips on trains, boats, cable cars etc. You can find the fares for any trip using the SBBTimetable (http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable). If you are not familiar with the timetable it will pay to first read the instructions on that page.
When you go to buy a ticket the fare you see on the right hand side of the page will normally be the half-fare price. Double it to get full fare. With A Swiss Travel Pass it is free provided it is shown as free on the Area of Validity map ( PDF downloadable from http://www.myswissalps.com/sw isstravelpass/validity).
You should read “How to choose the best travel pass” (http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses/prac tical/chooserailpass), download the handy spreadsheet calculator and do the math.
It may well be that an 8-day Swiss Travel Pass turns out to be best value even though you are only in Switzerland for 6 days.
The Swiss Travel Pass covers your travel to the Swiss Border. You will need a ticket from there to Berlin. See http://www.myswissalps.com/tr aintickets/germany. It is worth checking to Deutsche Bahn website. You can often get saver fares from German cities through to Swiss cities or vice versa. That may turn out to offer the best price and if you get a DB ticket and don’t travel much on your first day then a 4-day STP will probably do you quite well.
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