Grand Train Tour of Switzerland Holidays

What Is the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland?

Think of it as a route map rather than something you buy. Switzerland Tourism joined the best scenic train rides in the country into a round trip, split into sections you can ride in either direction from wherever suits you. You'll find the loop's length in the at-a-glance box, and the official MySwitzerland page has the full map, an app and a planning booklet.

It runs all year.

Well, most of it does. A couple of the headline pieces are seasonal, which catches people out in winter. Along the way you cross every language region, pass several UNESCO World Heritage sites and stop in the big resorts: Zermatt under the Matterhorn, St Moritz in the Engadine, Lucerne, and Montreux on Lake Geneva, where the vineyards drop steeply to the water.

The Sections of the Loop, and Which Holidays Ride Them

None of the holidays on this page rides the whole loop. Each one picks up a run of sections, so here's how they line up against the official map:

A pattern stands out. Tours concentrate on the high alpine middle, where the trains climb highest, the reservations are compulsory and the logistics are hardest. The Glacier Express section alone, the world's slowest express train, runs from Zermatt through Brig, Andermatt and Chur, over the Oberalp Pass and through the Rhine Gorge, before climbing to St Moritz.

What gets left out is the gentler half.

From Lugano the Gotthard Panorama Express climbs the old Gotthard line to Flüelen, where you swap the panoramic carriage for a paddle steamer across Lake Lucerne, a train and boat day that's hard to beat. The Voralpen-Express then rolls through green hills from Lucerne to St Gallen and over the tall Sitter Viaduct, and the last leg follows Lake Constance and the Rhine to Schaffhausen, near the Rhine Falls. Our Lucerne holidays page covers that end of the country.

The Best of Switzerland: The Alpine Core in One Week

If you want the headline trains of the grand tour without reading a single timetable, The Best of Switzerland is the one to look at. You fly into Zurich and head up to Davos, in the mountains of Graubünden, then ride the Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass to Tirano in Italy and back again. Glaciers, milky lakes and the stone spiral viaduct at Brusio all slide past the window.

Next comes the long ride west on the Glacier Express to Brig, over the Oberalp Pass with lunch served at your seat in the panoramic carriage. It's the train journey most people book the whole holiday for!

From there the tour settles into Interlaken for a few nights. The itinerary mixes free time with included excursions: a mountain excursion by cable car up the Schilthorn, a wander round car-free Mürren, the Trümmelbach Falls thundering inside the mountain and a cruise on Lake Thun to Spiez Castle. The Jungfraujoch and Glacier 3000 are among the extra trips you can add.

Finally the GoldenPass line carries you down through the valleys of the Pays-d'Enhaut to Lausanne, and you fly home from Geneva. Accommodation is in four-star hotels throughout, and a Holiday Director travels with the group the whole way, handling every connection. Our Bernina Express holidays and Glacier Express holidays pages go deeper on those two days.

Other Holidays That Ride Pieces of the Loop

Each of the others is built around a single base, with day trips on the panoramic lines:

• Winter in Switzerland runs in February and March from a hotel in Interlaken. You ride the GoldenPass Express to Montreux for Château de Chillon, take a cogwheel train from Grindelwald to Kleine Scheidegg below the Eiger and finish with chocolate at Maison Cailler and fondue in Gruyères.
• Swiss Alpine Glories and the GoldenPass Train stays at Château-d'Oex, right on the GoldenPass line, and rides it both ways, to Montreux and to Interlaken, with Grindelwald and Gruyères too.
• Lake Como, St Moritz and the Bernina Express is based on Lake Como in Italy. It spends a day crossing the Alps on the Bernina Express to St Moritz, with boat trips and the gardens of Villa del Balbianello on other days.
• Lake Maggiore, Zermatt and the Centovalli Railway stays at Baveno on Lake Maggiore, with days out over the Simplon Pass to Zermatt and on the Centovalli Railway to Locarno, one of the official shortcuts.

Our guides to the GoldenPass Express and the Centovalli Railway cover those lines in detail.

Doing the Grand Train Tour Yourself: What You'd Have to Book

You can absolutely make this rail journey independently. Switzerland Tourism says the Swiss Travel Pass covers the fares on every section, but it doesn't cover reserved seats, and on the busiest trains those aren't something you can skip. Here's how the jobs split:

Going it alone gives you the whole loop and any date you like. A package hands someone else the fiddly part. You can check any section on the SBB timetable, and our Swiss Travel Pass guide explains what the pass does and doesn't include.

When to Go: Summer Loop or Winter Version?

Summer is when every piece runs. The Gotthard Panorama Express operates from April to October only, and the Bernina Express bus from Tirano to Lugano runs from March to October, according to MySwitzerland's Bernina Express page.

Out of season you swap.

The Treno Gottardo covers the Gotthard route to Lucerne all year, and the Palm Express postbus links St Moritz and Lugano over the Maloja Pass year-round too. The Glacier Express itself takes an annual break from mid-October to early December. A winter version of the loop is perfectly possible, then, with snow on the viaducts and a couple of substitutions. The summer holidays here run from May to September, while Winter in Switzerland goes in February and March, and our Switzerland in winter guide covers the snowy side of rail travel.

Before You Book: A Grand Tour Checklist

The tour cards above have the latest dates, and for more escorted trips there's Swiss rail holidays, Switzerland rail tours or our guide to seeing Switzerland by train.

Questions people ask