May 15, 2010 - 11:13 AM
Hello!
Our party of four will be traveling to Switzerland from Italy (Fidenza, Parma region) to Mürren in June and we have purchased Swiss Cards from RailEurope for our time in Switzerland. I understand that we will need to buy tickets from our origin to Domodossola, and then our trip will be covered by the Swiss Card to our final destination (Mürren). Will the ticket counter in Fidenza (a very small station) understand how to sell me this ticket (including reservations through to Spiez) and how to validate my pass, or should I make some kind of preparation in advance? The last time we were in Fidenza, we had Italy railpasses, and it was clear that this station did not see many passes - there was much confusion, and nobody at the station spoke English (nor we much Italian). I have not been able to find any way to purchase this complicated ticket (full fare to Domodossola, reservation only to Spiez) from home in the US.
We will be passing through Milano about a week before our trip to Switzerland, so I intended to buy our seat reservations (the Cisalpino/EuroCity train requires reservations) at that time - can I also validate the pass then, or do I also need to visit the ticket counter in Fidenza on the day of our departure, or can I self-validate? The instructions on the "card" (it's really just a printed ticket on the same stock as a railpass) are a bit unclear on this point.
Finally, we intend to use our "outbound" leg to take us to Geneva, but we're actually spending two nights there before flying home. Must we travel to the actual airport to satisfy the "border or airport" requirement, or is any stop in Geneva sufficient? I'm aware that our card expires once we take this trip, and will not be valid during our stay in Geneva.
Thanks so much. I have been to Mürren before and I am very much looking forward to returning.