Glacier Express Holidays From the UK

What Do Glacier Express Holidays Include?

The train takes up one day, but it's the day the whole week is built around.

Around it come flights, hotel accommodation, transfers, breakfast and most dinners and a run of other mountain trains and excursions, so you're never left working out how to get from the end of the line to your next bed. The accommodation moves with the tour, from the mountains of Graubünden to the Bernese Oberland and on to Lake Geneva. Here's how the package breaks down:

Your seat comes with the booking. On this train that isn't a nice extra, because every passenger needs a seat reservation as well as a valid ticket. It's one less thing to chase.

The Best of Switzerland: Three Panoramic Trains in One Week

Travelsphere's The Best of Switzerland is the rail holiday to look at if the Glacier Express is the train you've always wanted to ride. It's a touring week, so you move between hotels, but your Holiday Director handles the connections and you never need to read a timetable.

Davos and the Bernina Express

You fly into Zurich and head up to Davos, the mountain resort high in Graubünden where you spend your first nights, in the heart of the Rhaetian Railway's network of red trains. From there the group rides the Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass to Tirano in Italy and back again, past glaciers, milky lakes and a stone spiral viaduct. It's a fine warm-up for the main event.

Your Day on the Glacier Express

Then comes the long ride west.

You board the Glacier Express and follow it across the roof of Switzerland to Brig, in the Valais, with food brought to your seat while the mountains slide past the glass. The scenery changes by the hour: snow patches, grazing cows, alpine villages with chapels on the hillsides, then a tunnel and a whole new valley opens up. Near the top of the Oberalp Pass the trees give way to bare slopes and a high alpine lake, and the views run for miles. It's the highest point of the whole train journey, and arguably the best view in the Swiss Alps from a seat!

Interlaken and the Jungfrau Region

Next you settle into a hotel in Interlaken for a few nights. A cable car lifts you to the Schilthorn, you wander the lanes of car-free Mürren, and the Trümmelbach Falls thunder down inside the mountain. There's a cruise on Lake Thun to Spiez Castle too. The Jungfraujoch is among the extra trips you can add, and our Interlaken holidays page covers the town in more depth.

The GoldenPass Line to Lake Geneva

Finally the GoldenPass panoramic train carries you down from the Bernese Oberland to Lausanne, where vineyards drop to the water and the scenery turns from Alps to lakeshore. You fly home from Geneva. For the other red train on this tour, see our Bernina Express holidays page.

Which Part of the Glacier Express Route Will You Ride?

The full line runs from Zermatt to St Moritz and takes most of a day. MySwitzerland calls it the world's slowest express train, and that's rather the point: it gives you time to take in the scenery and the changing landscapes. Most rail holidays ride a section rather than the whole thing, and this one runs from Graubünden west to Brig. That means you'll cross the Oberalp Pass and run down through Andermatt and the Goms valley. Whether you also pass Chur, the Rhine Gorge and the Landwasser Viaduct depends on where the group boards, so check the day-by-day itinerary if they're high on your list.

The eastern end is where the engineering shows off. Stone viaducts, horseshoe curves and tunnels that loop inside the mountain lift ordinary trains uphill without a rack. On the Landwasser Viaduct the track runs straight off the bridge into a hole in the cliff, one of the most photographed moments in the Swiss Alps.

Further west it all softens.

Hay meadows, larch woods and timber chalets fill the alpine valley of the Goms before the line drops into the Valais, and the views open out over the wide, sunny Rhône. The railway's own route guide lists each highlight in order, and our Glacier Express route guide walks through it station by station.

On Board: Classes, Food and Those Windows

Every class gets the same panoramic windows that curve up into the roof, so nobody misses the views. The differences are about space and service:

• Second class, the standard class, has comfortable seats in four-seat bays.
• First class gives you more room, in two-seat and four-seat bays.
• Excellence Class guarantees a window seat in a two-seat lounge compartment, with a concierge, its own bar and a five-course menu with wine.

Food is cooked fresh in the on-board kitchen and served at your seat, either a three-course menu of the day or dishes from the menu, and payment on board is cashless. There's audio commentary on the sights in several languages as you go, pointing out the passes, gorges and glaciers outside the panoramic windows. On The Best of Switzerland it's included, so all you need to think about is which side of the valley to look at.

Pack light for the train day. The Glacier Express FAQs say suitcases go in racks at the end of each carriage and suggest no more than one extra bag on top of your hand luggage, and ski bags and oversized luggage aren't carried at all.

Ask Travelsphere which class your seat is in if that matters to you. Our guide to Glacier Express Excellence Class explains what the top tier adds.

Is a Glacier Express Package Worth It, or Should You Go It Alone?

You can certainly book the train yourself.

You'll need a ticket for the route, the compulsory seat reservation and a route-dependent supplement, and a Swiss Travel Pass covers the fare but not the reservation. First class and Excellence Class also need a first-class pass. Short hops between neighbouring stops are only sold on certain trains in the summer timetable, so the trip you've got in mind may not be bookable as a short section. Then there's the hotel at each end and the connecting train from Zurich, Chur or Geneva to reach the line.

Going alone gives you the full train journey and any date you like. A package means someone else makes all the pieces fit, which is worth a lot on a long day with a suitcase. Our Glacier Express tickets guide covers the independent route, the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland strings it together with the other panoramic lines, and Swiss rail holidays compares escorted trips more widely.

When Is the Best Time for a Glacier Express Trip?

The train runs daily for most of the year, with an annual break from mid-October to the beginning of December. Summer and winter each have their own timetable.

The holidays shown here run from May to September. In late spring there's still snow on the high peaks while the valleys turn green, and by midsummer wildflowers line the track and the alpine meadows are at their best. Early summer brings snowmelt rushing down the rivers beside the line. September is calmer, with clear views, quieter hotels and the first autumn colour on the slopes. If you'd rather see the Swiss Alps under snow, our Switzerland in winter guide covers the snowy landscapes and the trains that run through them.

Want More Time in Zermatt or St Moritz?

This tour leaves the Glacier Express at Brig, so the two famous end stations aren't on it. Zermatt is a car-free resort at the foot of the Matterhorn, where the Gornergrat railway climbs to a viewpoint above the glaciers and the Matterhorn fills the skyline. St Moritz sits beside its lake in the Engadine, the resort village where the line starts in the east, with Chur, the oldest town in Switzerland, on the way west. Our Zermatt holidays and St Moritz holidays pages cover stays at each end, and the Gornergrat railway guide covers the ride up.

Before You Book: A Glacier Express Checklist

The tour card at the top of this page has the latest dates, and our Glacier Express guide covers everything else about the train itself, from its history to the timetable.

Questions people ask