[Removed user]

21 October 2018 at 2:53:48 #818758

Hi, I am a family of 4 with 2 children, age 7 and 12. We will be travelling from Paris to Zermatt on 16 Dec. We plan to use the Swiss Travel Pass/Family Pass (STP) for the journey. My queries are:

1. Should we travel on TGV Lyria from Paris to Geneva or Paris to Basel for the journey?

2. Should we purchase only separate train tickets from Paris to Basel/Geneva? Can we use the STP for the remaining journey from Geneva/Basel?

4. I notices there are a few train stations in Basel and Geneva? Does the TGV Lyria train from Paris stop at the same station as the connecting train to Visp/Zermatt?

5. If using STP, do we just board the connecting train or do we need to go to ticket counter to exchange for tickets?

6. Can we make seat reservations on train enroute from Geneva/Basel to Visp and subsquently Visp to Zermatt?

7. Is Visp the only connecting station enroute to Zermatt?

8. From Zermatt station is it possible to walk to the town centre? what is the distance from the station to town?

9. How much time should we plan in between train connections to sufficiently cater for logistics of offboarding, identifying the right platform, train, rest and the onboarding again.

My apologies if my questions are too trivial and has been repeated before. Thank you for your kind replies.

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

[Removed user]

21 October 2018 at 8:42:47 #898189

Hi cnwdoug,

1. I would choose the town that works best for your final destination that day.

2. Yes, just a ticket to one of those towns and then if your Swiss Travel Pass starts on your date of entry use it to travel to your end destination. For train tickets from France look here: http://www.myswissalps.com/tr aintickets/france

4. Yes. There is only one ‘main’ station in any town. The other stops would be suburban commuter stations that the train may or may not stop at on the way in or out of town. Use “Geneva” or “Basel” when searching for train connections. It will default to the main train station in town. http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable

5. Just hop on your train with the Swiss Travel Pass – the rail pass is your ticket

6. You can check the timetable to see if reservations are possible on those routes (noted with an ‘R’ but reservations are very uncommon on Swiss trains). http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/reservations

7. It would be Visp or Brig (they are 5 minutes apart) depending on the train you are coming in on.

8. The Zermatt train station is in the town of Zermatt. If your hotel isn’t close to the train station you can arrange for a pick up from most hotels if you are staying overnight

9. The Swiss railways timetable won’t give you a connection time that is impossible to make. That being said, larger stations, like Zurich can be quite daunting and I would give yourself 15 minutes if the tracks aren’t close to each other (IE going from track 8 to 44). Smaller stations with only a couple tracks may just have 4-6 minutes to connect which is normally fine. You just need to be organized and ready to get off the train as soon as it arrives at the station.

Let us know if you have further queries!

[Removed user]

21 October 2018 at 12:44:35 #898190

Hi Lucas, Thank you for your patience and clear replies. It is most helpful. 🙂