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Hello,
In December we are travelling to Switzerland and Germany. (We are traveling from Zurich to Zermatt, Zermatt to Munich, Munich to Garmisch Partenkirchen and from GAPA to Zurich). I have researched a ton on what rail passes/half passes/single tickets etc and I still can’t figure out what is the best and cheapest option of train travel for our journey. We know what days we will be leaving to the next destination. If anyone could help me out that would be much appreciated. It’s driving me crazy!
Thanks, Mikhaila
From Canada
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Hello,
I think that the bast thing to do is map out the route you plan to take, day by day, from the day you arrive in Zurich until the day you depart Zurich to return to Canada. Only then will you know how many days you will be in Switzerland and the same for Germany, and how much actual travel you will doing in each. Then you will want to know how much your travel will cost if you purchase point to point tickets. There are other experts on this site who will point you to how to do calculations for Switzerland. It looks like you will be doing about half of your travel in Germany, and there you will be more on your own, probably, as this site concerns itself more for Switzerland. You will be surprised how much you will be able to find about schedules and fares if you simply google train travel in Germany and then the routes you wish to take. If you find that the total of your single fare tickets is approaching the cost of a two-country (Switzerland and Germany) train pass, you may decide to buy the passes, as this will allow you to make extra trips without thinking of the additional cost. Some passes will also entitle you to a reduction on any rides you might plan to take up to see the mountains, and some will not. As an example, here is a table of prices for the Gornergrat Bahn (Zermatt/Matterhorn) http://www.gornergratbahn.ch/ en/summer/railway-information/prices/ and here is a table of their price reductions: http://www.gornergratbahn.ch/ en/summer/railway-information/general-informations/. Note that here there is no discount for any kind of EurailPass on the Gornergrat Bahn but there is 50% off for the Swiss Travel Pass. If you do purchase the Swiss Travel Pass, it will cover you to the border of Switzerland, and you will have to pay the balance of the trip from there and then back. But do you want to buy a Swiss Travel Pass for a certain number of days and then basically waste it by going off to Germany for a number of days ? These are all things to consider. Happy googling !
Hi Mikhaila and welcome to MySwissAlps!
The best rail pass will depend on how much train travel you do in each country.
You may find a Eurail Select Pass for Switzerland and Germany best, but if you are taking several more trips in Switzerland (train, cable car etc) and only 2 or 3 in Germany, I’d be tempted to buy a Swiss Travel Pass or Swiss Half Fare Card for Switzerland and point to point tickets in Germany.
A Swiss Travel Pass makes the most sense for Switzerland, but if you are in Germany in the middle of your Swiss travels then may only make sense for the Swiss part of the trip before Germany (which is fine if your last trip in Switzerland is just Germany to Zurich. Also, the Swiss Half Fare Card (which is valid for 30 days) is a good bet.
Try the following link to help you figure out prices and do comparisons between passes: http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses/prac tical/chooserailpass
Look at the following links to read more about the different rail passes (click the where it’s valid tab for a map of covered routes/areas:
Wow! Thank you for the fast responses. I think the Eurail pass may end up being our best bet for the four trains we need for the four cities. The only thing I’m still hung up on is trying to figure out the trains/cable cars we will need for when we go to the ski resorts in both Zermatt and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I’ll keep trying but thank you for all the info.
Mikhaila
Hello again, You said << I think the Eurail pass may end up being our best bet for the four trains we need for the four cities. >> I haven’t done the numbers myself, but I must say I am somewhat surprised. How many days from start to end of your trip ? Are you only planning on the four segments of train travel (Zurich – Zermatt, Zermatt – Munich, Munich – GAPA, and finally GAPA to Zurich) and how did the four single trip prices compare to the price of the Germany/Switzerland EurailPass ? I would have thought the pass would be considerably more expensive, but we still don’t know the total length of your stay. May I take it that for the rest of the time you plan to be skiing in the two areas ?
Something else just occurred to me. Is a return ticket (say one from Zurich to Zermatt and then return to Zurich) cheaper than buying two one-way tickets ? I just did a simulation from Zurich to another city and found that the round trip fare is exactly double the one way fare, so there goes that thought. I’m also wondering whether second-class vs first-class prices could add to your considerations. I ask this because when I have traveled in Switzerland in the past I always did so second class and it was more than adequate. I actually found the people more friendly/interesting and there were fewer foreigners. I just did another simulation between the same two cities and found that the first class fare was 75% greater than the second class fare. There are also supersaver tickets (with discounts of up to 70%), but since these are not always available it is probably better for tourists not to rely on being able to benefit. More about these at http://www.sbb.ch/en/travelca rds-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/supersaver -tickets.html
Hi!
So yes I ended up doing the math the best that I could. It only costs $360 Canadian/each for the 4 day Eurail pass and we are traveling on trains exactly four days (one to each city). When I looked at tickets individually, the ones that I could search for, that total put me way over the Eurail total. Our trip is from December 10 to the 27th total. So in GaPA and Zermatt it’ll be all ski and hikes for us. In the other two spots it’ll be sightseeing and touring around. I did not look at the prices of one way tickets. I did compare the price of getting a Swiss Pass and then adding on the Germany trains and this also put me over that Eurail pass total. And yes definitely have been looking at it for 2nd class fares only. I have tried multiple times on different sites to look up individual tickets between the two countries the best that I can and I feel like the $360 is actually a real good price? When in Zurich I also thought we would just need to get a Zurich card for the city (extra cost).
Hopefully this makes sense!
Hey !
So you have been doing your homework. A few minutes ago, just for fun, I checked out the Eurail Germany Switzerland pass. I see that you can choose different numbers of days for travel in a two month period. I saw 4 days in 2 months for CA$399, 5 days in 2 months for CA$450, 6 days in 2 months for CA$495, and there were others for greater numbers of days of travel. So you were in the ballpark with your CA$360, even better than what I found. I read that you have to pay extra if you travel though a third country (for example, Austria). If the amount extra you would have to pay is more than you want to pay, they suggest you plan another route that would not take you through the third country, in this case Austria. Just for fun, I also checked the cost for a 3 country pass, adding Austria, and the one for 5 days in 2 months is CA$ 492 (there wasn’t one for 4 days in 2 months) so I guess this is no help to you. If you check your maps carefully, you will see that you go by Bregenz, Austria to get to Germany if you go east on the south side of the Bodensee (Lake Constance). It’s not a great distance so the additional cost is probably negligible. However, if you did add Austria, you could return to Zurich via Innsbruck on a fifth day of travel. Just a thought. GAPA is much closer to Innsbruck than it is to Munich (see attached map), and train connections from Innsbruck to Zurich are very good.
Attachments:Perfect, thanks for the info.
I’m also struggling to understand the lift tickets and ski areas in Zermatt. I have tried looking at the Zermatt website but seem to still be confused. I’m most wanting to know how we get to the lifts in Zermatt (what are the lift options?) and the prices for when we leave our hotel to getting up on the mountain to go snowboarding. Any easier explanation of this would be great 🙂
Mikhaila
Hi Mikhaila,
The panoramic map on Zermatt’s website might help (toggle between all lifts and only open lifts to see what is physically there compared to what is currently open).
http://www.zermatt.ch/en# – click live and current tab then live panoramic map. Also under the “live and current” tab is the timetable and prices link for tickets and ski passes.
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