Swiss Rail Holidays: Escorted Tours on Scenic Trains

What Do Swiss Rail Holidays Actually Take Care Of?

Getting around Switzerland by rail is easy, because public transport here runs on time and connects almost everywhere. The panoramic trains are the fiddly part.

On the Glacier Express a seat reservation is obligatory for every passenger, and it isn't covered by a travel pass, so a rail ticket on its own won't get you aboard. The Bernina Express works the same way: you need a valid ticket plus a reserved seat in the panoramic car, and the Rhaetian Railway warns that seats often sell out and advises booking early. Then there are the cases. Hauling luggage on and off a mountain railway between hotels is nobody's idea of a holiday, and the tight changes at stations such as Brig, Chur or Spiez come quickly when you're travelling with suitcases.

An escorted tour books all of that before you leave home, which is the whole point of it.

Going it alone? Check the SBB Swiss Travel Pass page first: it covers the panoramic trains but not their seat reservations or supplements, which you book with each railway.

Touring or One Base: Which Kind of Swiss Train Holiday Suits You?

The tours on this page split into touring holidays and single-centre holidays. Touring trips move you from hotel to hotel so each rail journey carries you on across Switzerland, while the others keep you in one hotel and use the railway for each day's excursion, which means unpacking once and travelling light each morning.

• Choose touring if you want to see several regions of Switzerland by rail in one trip.
• Choose a single hotel if you'd rather unpack once and come back to the same room each evening.
• Choose the Italian lakes if you want Lake Como or Lake Maggiore with days out into the Swiss mountains.

A touring holiday across the Swiss Alps

The Best of Switzerland is the touring choice. You fly into Zurich and home from Geneva, staying in Davos, Interlaken and Lausanne in four-star hotels. While you're in Davos you ride the Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass to Tirano and back, then the Glacier Express carries you on to Brig with lunch served on board. Interlaken gives you the mountain scenery of the Bernese Oberland: Trümmelbach Falls, car-free Mürren and the Schilthorn, with a Lake Thun cruise to Spiez Castle. Finally the GoldenPass route takes you down to Lausanne and Lake Geneva.

The Holiday Director travels with you the whole way. The rack railway through the Jungfrau region to Jungfraujoch, and Glacier 3000, are optional extras on this tour, so check what's included if the Top of Europe is a must.

One mountain base with the GoldenPass both ways

Newmarket's Swiss Alpine Glories and the GoldenPass Train keeps you at the Roc et Neige in Château-d'Oex, a village in the Pays-d'Enhaut on the GoldenPass line itself. You ride the line down to Montreux one day and over to Interlaken another, with visits to Grindelwald below the Eiger and to Gruyères for cheese and the castle. Flights go to Geneva from regional UK airports.

An Italian lakes base that crosses into Switzerland

Newmarket's Italian lakes tours fly to Milan and stay on the Italian side of the border. On Lake Como, St Moritz and the Bernina Express you spend a day climbing out of Italy by rail to St Moritz, with boat trips on Lake Como and the gardens of Villa del Balbianello on the other days. Lake Maggiore, Zermatt and the Centovalli Railway is based at the Grand Hotel Dino in Baveno. It crosses the Simplon Pass and takes the shuttle train up to Zermatt under the Matterhorn, then rides the Centovalli Railway through its wooded valleys to Locarno.

Central Switzerland isn't covered by any of these. If Lake Lucerne, the Rigi and Pilatus top your list, our Lucerne holidays page covers them.

Which Scenic Trains Are Worth Building a Trip Around?

A handful of trains do most of the heavy lifting on rail holidays in Switzerland, and each rail journey feels quite different from the window, from glaciers and snowy peaks to vineyards and lakes.

Glacier Express

The Glacier Express runs between Zermatt, below the Matterhorn, and St Moritz on metre gauge track, climbing over the Oberalp Pass through snow and high pasture. Meals are cooked fresh in the on-board kitchen and served at your seat in the carriage, and the panoramic windows reach up into the roof so you see the peaks, not just the valley floor. The official Glacier Express FAQ sets out the reservation rules.

Bernina Express

Here's the one that crosses the Alps into Italy. The Bernina Express follows the Rhaetian Railway's UNESCO World Heritage route past the Bernina glaciers and down the spiral viaduct at Brusio to Tirano. Pack your passport. The RhB guide comparing the express with the regional train explains how the two differ. See Bernina Express holidays for every tour that rides it.

GoldenPass Express

The GoldenPass Express links Montreux and Interlaken Ost as a through train, with no change at Zweisimmen, swapping the vineyards above Lake Geneva for the chalets of Gstaad and the lake scenery of the Bernese Oberland.

Smaller mountain railways fill the gaps: the cogwheel lines of the Jungfrau region, the shuttle train to Zermatt, cable cars and funiculars up to the mountain viewpoints, and the Gornergrat railway climbing out of Zermatt with the Matterhorn ahead. Our guide to Swiss trains explains how the whole network fits together.

Summer or Winter for a Rail Journey Through Switzerland?

Most departures run from spring to early autumn, with the Newmarket lake tours going from April right through to October and The Best of Switzerland from May to September. That's when the Swiss Alps are green and the walks around Mürren and Grindelwald are clear of snow.

Winter is a different holiday altogether. Travelsphere's Winter in Switzerland runs in February and March from one hotel in Interlaken: a cogwheel train from Grindelwald to Kleine Scheidegg beneath the Eiger with lunch, frozen waterfalls in the Lauterbrunnen valley, the GoldenPass Express to Montreux, wine tasting at Château de Chillon, chocolate-making at Maison Cailler and fondue in Gruyères. And lunch at Kleine Scheidegg comes with the Eiger right outside the window! Our guide to Switzerland in winter covers what runs and what shuts.

Prefer to skip the plane? The tours here include flights, but our guide to the train to Switzerland from London covers the Eurostar from London St Pancras and the onward trains.

Before You Book: What to Check

Once you've picked your rail holiday, the rest of Switzerland by Train fills in the detail on every route, station and mountain railway along the way.

Questions people ask