[Removed user]

19 February 2018 at 8:32:21 #814421

Hi All,

We are 4 energetic adults who will arrive early evening in Grindelwald on February 22 and will be in the Jungfrau region for only one day, February 23. We have an 8 day Swiss Pass and would love some help figuring out the best way to arrange the following (very!) ambitious program during our one day in the Jungfrau region:

1. Take earliest morning train February 23 from Grindelwald to Jungfraujoch, and spend 2 hours visiting at the top. I believe the earliest train from Grindelwald is around 6:30am.
2. Leave Jungfraujoch by about 10:30 or 11am. Take a train to pass through Wengen and Lauterbrunnen to see them generally; we hope we don’t need to get off the train to get a little bit of a sense of the beauty of those locations from the train? We do not expect to visit any falls in Lauterbrunnnen. Or is there a cable car we should take instead of a train?
3. Get to Murren by around noon or 12:30 to take cable car to Schilthorn. We would like to have lunch at Piz Gloria, and currently have a reserved time between 12:30-14:00. Is that realistic?
4. What is our best way to get to Murren and Piz Gloria if we are coming from the Wengen/Lauterbrunnen area?
5. From where should 2 of us catch a train later that same afternoon of February 23 to Lucerne? We hope to be on the train by 15:30 to have daylight to see the beautiful scenery. We will have brought our luggage for locker storage at the Grindelwald train station early that morning when we leave there to go to Jungfraujoch. Is that the best plan or is there some other way to leave the area by train for Lucerne, having luggage in mind? Just two medium-sized pieces of luggage total.
6. Just for general background in terms of what else we will see in Switzerland, we have 9 days altogether, arriving in Zurich February 22, passing through Bern for a few hours on the way to Grindelwald, then (after our time in the Jungfrau) heading to Lucerne overnight February 23, then February 24 to St. Moritz for 2 days (1 day skiing in St. Moritz), then taking the Glacier Express on February 26 from St. Moritz to Zermatt, skiing in Zermatt Feb. 27, train to Chamonix February 28 to see Aiguille du Midi then overnight February 28 in Courmayeur to ski there March 1, and back to Chamonix night of March 1 in order to ski next day March 2 in the Vallee Blanche on the French side (with a guide).

We do know this is a lot, but we want to see and experience as much as we can.Thanks so much for any suggestions!

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[Removed user]

19 February 2018 at 11:50:49 #876756

Hi Spiral, and welcome to MySwissAlps,

February 23rd is a stretch indeed.

1. I believe it’s 7:17 am. Please use the Swiss timetable to plan your trips.
2. You will get stunning views from the train.
3. From Jungfraujoch to Mürren via Lauterbrunnen is at least two hours by train. The cable car from Mürren will take you up to Schilthorn in 17 minutes. Earliest you will make it to the Schilthorn is 13.30 I reckon. But again, use the Swiss timetable for the exact travel times.
4. See answer 3
5. Fill in Schilthorn – Lucerne in the Swiss timetable and you’ll get the details. Make sure that in the via box you fill in Grindelwald. You will end up traveling through the dark. If you’re only staying one day, you could also look at the option to leave your luggage in Interlaken and only bring the necessary stuff for the next day in a very small day pack. When you’re traveling to Lucerne you will have to go via Interlaken anyway. And you will pass Interlaken when you’re coming from Bern the day before.
6. What are you planning to do in Lucerne? You won’t have much time. You will arrive late and you will probably hop on the train late morning latest the next day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth visiting, but I’m almost tempted to say skip it and add one more day to Grindelwald and travel to St. Moritz via Interlaken – Chur – St. Moritz (Bernina Express).

[rockoyster]

19 February 2018 at 20:30:27 #876757

4. From Lauterbrunnen a very nice circuit to do is to Grütschalp (cable car), Mürren (cogwheel train), Gimmelwald (cable car), Stechelberg (cable car), Lauterbrunnen (bus).

Hope the weather co-operates for you.😎

[Slowpoke]

20 February 2018 at 1:36:31 #876758

<<“you could also look at the option to leave your luggage in Interlaken and only bring the necessary stuff for the next day in a very small day pack.”>>

That makes a lot of sense for their proposed itinerary.

<<“What are you planning to do in Lucerne? You won’t have much time. You will arrive late and you will probably hop on the train late morning latest the next day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth visiting, but I’m almost tempted to say skip it and add one more day to Grindelwald and travel to St. Moritz via Interlaken – Chur – St. Moritz (Bernina Express). “>>

Right on!

Slowpoke

[Removed user]

21 February 2018 at 8:04:35 #876759

Thank you all for such helpful advice. Some follow up questions if anyone has thoughts:

1. You’ve given us the great suggestion that on our way from Bern to Grindelwald, we (actually 2 of the 4 of us) check our luggage at the Interlaken train station (if I’ve understood correctly) and just carry an overnight pack to Grindelwald. When we travel the next day, after visiting the Jungfraujoch, we go to the Schilthorn via the Murren cable car, but I’m not able toget a result in mapping that out using the Swiss rail timetable. Can you provide a bit more detail about how we travel from the Jungfrau to Murren?

2. When the Piz Gloria restaurant site tells us that our table reservation will be “available” to us between 12:30-14:00, does that mean that we can arrive any time before 14:00 and then sit to each lunch for an hour or so? Or does it mean that if we get to the restaurant at 13:30, we only have the table for 30 minutes?

3. I’m usually pretty good with maps, but again I’m having difficulty with the timetable. When 2 of us leave the Schilthorn to travel to Lucerne through Interlaken, what is the most direct route for speed? Is there any choice? Does it always involve a bus in Lauterbrunnen as I seem to get when I try the timetable? We would be interested possibly in either the fastest route or perhaps slower but scenic.

4.The other 2 of us could perhaps take the suggested Lauterbrunnen-Grutschalp-Gimmelwald circuit before returning to Grindelwald. Approximately how long would that circuit take?

5. Is the best way to get from Zermatt to Chamonix by train? Is there a bus option also? Is that bus covered by the Swiss Travel Pass? And if the scenery from the train is nicer than from a bus, is the only train option the one that takes about 4.5 hours, passing through Martigny? Or is there any shorter, more direct route by train if we wish to save time?

Thank you so much again – this is such an amazing and helpful site!

Kind regards, Spiral

[Slowpoke]

21 February 2018 at 9:24:37 #876760

Hi Spiral-

Sorry to hear that you are havng trouble with the timetable.

In case it is some other time table, please make sure that you are using the SBB timetable:

http://www.sbb.ch/en/

We recommmend that you access it through this page, and read the instructions carefully:

http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable

The timetable defaults to the fastest route, as a rule. That maybe why you having problems with the Schilthorn routing. As explained on the My Swiss Alps page, you must enter “vias” if you wish to control the routing in a way different from the default.

Todo that, you need the name of a station stop for a “via”, although the timetable will often offer some choices.

A map that is particularly useful for this task is map.search.ch:

map.search.ch/?pos=673408,164608&z=4:

I have zoomed in that link to zoom level 4, as you can see from the URL..

Zoom in further, to zoom level 16, and the rail lines become clearly visible.

In the menu, under points of interest, click on “Traffic.”

Icons appear for the modes of transportation selected. Zoom in to separate the names/icons…there are a lot of them:

map.search.ch/?pos=640144,159376&z=32 &poi=verkehr

Mouse over any icon and get the station name, as well as the transport routes that stop there. Click on the icon, and you get an abbreviated near term timetable.

You can use the station name to construct a route of your choice in the SBB timetable, using the via boxes. In the case of Schilthorn, you can route via Birg and Mürren, and from Mürren you can route via Stechelberg (bus to Lauterbrunnen) or Grütschalp ( train along the plateau above the valley on the side of the mountain, cable way down to Lauterbrunnen).

Hope that helps.

Regarding your table reservation, I would certainly expect the wording to be precise, consistent with normal Swiss practice. 😉

That table will be available for your use in the time span specified. Just joking now, but if you come early or stay late, the “Table Police” will speak politely but firmly to you, and explain the rules. As I said, just a bit of humor (I hope) but, if you think about it, they have to run a busy restaurant like that with clearly defined timing.

Since you can count on the SBB timetable and the transport services up to Schilthorn, to be timely, the system works.

This may also help:

http://www.schilthorn.ch/

and,

http://www.myswissalps.com/sc hilthorn

Slowpoke