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Swiss rail holidays
Escorted holidays from the UK with flights, hotels and the scenic trains booked for you
Switzerland holidays give you snowy peaks, glacier-fed lakes and some of the most scenic railways in Europe, all in a country small enough to cross by train in a day. Every trip on this page is escorted, with flights from the UK, hotels and the scenic journeys booked for you.
Travelsphere's The Best of Switzerland rides the famous panoramic trains from Davos to Lake Geneva. Newmarket adds lakeside bases, a winter week and a festive break. The cards and table above show the dates, pace and current from price.
Escorted tours with flights and hotels included. Facts from each operator's own site.
Travelsphere
The big three scenic trains in one week, with flights, hotels and a Holiday Director taking care of every connection.
From £3,379about £422 a day · per person
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Travelsphere
A snowy week based in Interlaken: mountain railways, the GoldenPass to Montreux, chocolate and fondue.
From £2,229about £318 a day · per person
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Newmarket Holidays
Lake Como base with a day crossing the Alps on the Bernina Express to St Moritz.
From £1,453about £182 a day · per person
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Newmarket Holidays
Lake Maggiore with days out to Zermatt and over the hundred valleys on the Centovalli Railway.
From £2,182about £273 a day · per person
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Newmarket Holidays
A week in the Pays-d'Enhaut riding the GoldenPass line both ways, with Grindelwald and Gruyères.
From £1,792about £224 a day · per person
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Newmarket Holidays
A short festive break with an evening at Montreux Christmas Market on the shore of Lake Geneva.
From £863about £216 a day · per person
See datesPrices are per person sharing, from the operators' own sites when we checked in October 2026. They change with dates and offers, so check the live price before you book.
| Holiday | Days | From | Per day | Scenic trains | Flights | Hotels | Pace | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Best of Switzerland Travelsphere · May to September 2027 | 8 | £3,379 | £422 | Bernina Express, Glacier Express, GoldenPass | Return flights from your chosen UK airport (into Zurich, home from Geneva) | 4-star hotels: Davos (2 nights), Interlaken (3), Lausanne (2) | Easy-going | Dates |
| Winter in Switzerland Travelsphere · February to March 2027 | 7 | £2,229 | £318 | GoldenPass Express, Jungfrau cogwheel trains | Return flights from the UK to Zurich | 6 nights in a 4-star hotel in Interlaken | Easy-going | Dates |
| Lake Como, St Moritz and the Bernina Express Newmarket Holidays · April to October 2027 | 8 | £1,453 | £182 | Bernina Express | Return flights to Milan | 7 nights on Lake Como, bed and breakfast or half board | Moderate | Dates |
| Lake Maggiore, Zermatt and the Centovalli Railway Newmarket Holidays · April to October 2027 | 8 | £2,182 | £273 | Centovalli Railway, Zermatt shuttle train | Return flights to Milan | 7 nights at the 4-star Grand Hotel Dino, Baveno | Moderate | Dates |
| Swiss Alpine Glories and the GoldenPass Train Newmarket Holidays · May 2027 to September 2028 | 8 | £1,792 | £224 | GoldenPass | Return flights to Geneva from regional UK airports | 7 nights at the 3-star Roc et Neige, Château-d'Oex | Moderate | Dates |
| Swiss Christmas Markets Newmarket Holidays · November to December 2026 | 4 | £863 | £216 | None | Return flights from UK airports | 3 nights half board at the 3-star Hotel Roc et Neige, Château-d'Oex | Easy | Dates |
Start with one question: how often do you want to pack a suitcase?
Each one includes return flights, transfers, hotels and a leader who travels with the group. What changes is the shape of the week. Some move you across the country on the panoramic trains, others keep you in one hotel and take you out by rail each day, and a couple sit just over the border in Italy.
The Best of Switzerland is the one to pick if you want to see the most. You fly into Zurich and stay in Davos, then ride the Bernina Express over the Bernina Pass to Tirano and back. Next the Glacier Express carries you to Brig with lunch served at your seat. Interlaken is your base for the Bernese Oberland, with Trümmelbach Falls, car-free Mürren, the Schilthorn summit and a cruise on Lake Thun to Spiez Castle. Finally the GoldenPass line carries you through the Pays-d'Enhaut and down to Lausanne, and you fly home from Geneva without doubling back.
It runs from May to September at an easy-going pace, with hotels in Davos, Interlaken and Lausanne. Our own page on the Best of Switzerland tour walks through it day by day.
Newmarket's Swiss Alpine Glories keeps you at the Roc et Neige in Château-d'Oex, a chalet village in the Pays-d'Enhaut that sits right on the line between Montreux and Interlaken. You'll ride it down to the lakeside palms of the Swiss Riviera one day and over to the Bernese Oberland another, with time in Grindelwald below the north face of the Eiger and in Gruyères, the hilltop town that gave the cheese its name. You unpack once.
Newmarket's lakes trips fly to Milan and stay on the Italian side of the Alps. Lake Como, St Moritz and the Bernina Express pairs boat trips and the gardens of Villa del Balbianello with a day crossing the mountains to St Moritz in the Engadin. Lake Maggiore, Zermatt and the Centovalli Railway is based at the Grand Hotel Dino in Baveno, with a day over the Simplon Pass to Zermatt and another through the hundred valleys of the Centovalli to Locarno.
You get warm evenings by the water. The trade-off is longer days on the coach to reach the high mountains.
Winter in Switzerland stays in Interlaken all week in February or March. You'll take the cogwheel train from Grindelwald up to Kleine Scheidegg for lunch below the Eiger, walk past the frozen waterfalls of the Lauterbrunnen valley, and ride across to Montreux for a guided visit to Château de Chillon with a wine tasting. There's chocolate-making at Maison Cailler and fondue in Gruyères too. No ski boots, no lift queues, no early starts!
Our page on this snowy week has the full plan.
Newmarket's Swiss Christmas Markets break is the shortest trip here: a few nights half board in a chalet village and an evening among the festive stalls on the shore of Lake Geneva. Our page on Christmas holidays in Switzerland compares the festive choices.
Switzerland is compact, but each region feels like a different country. Here's what each one gives you, and which of these holidays takes you there.
The south-east corner is railway country, where the Albula and Bernina lines run past the Landwasser Viaduct, glaciers and the milky water of Lago Bianco before dropping into the Valposchiavo valley on the way to Tirano. Davos and St Moritz are the big names, both famous ski resorts with hiking trails in summer. See our guide to holidays on the Bernina line for every tour that rides it.
Interlaken sits between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau rising behind it. From here the mountain railways climb to Grindelwald, Wengen, Mürren and up to the Jungfraujoch, which the Jungfrau Railways call the highest railway station in Europe. Down in the Lauterbrunnen valley, waterfalls pour off cliffs on both sides. In summer the hiking trails between the car-free villages are some of the finest in the Swiss Alps. It's the region most of these holidays visit, and our Interlaken holidays page goes into it in depth.
French-speaking Switzerland has vineyards stepping down to the water, belle époque paddle steamers and palm trees along the promenade at Montreux. Château de Chillon stands on a rock in the lake just along the shore. Lausanne climbs the hillside above it, and Geneva sits at the far western tip of the lake. Read more on our Montreux holidays page, or walk the lakeside path for the scenery.
Zermatt is a car-free village at the head of the Mattertal valley, where the Glacier Express starts and ends. The Matterhorn fills the end of the main street, the Gornergrat cogwheel railway climbs to a ridge facing it across the glaciers, and in winter the ski slopes run from below the Matterhorn all the way into Italy. Our Zermatt holidays page covers the tours that include it.
Lucerne has the covered wooden Chapel Bridge, a painted old town and paddle steamers on the lake, with Mount Pilatus and the Rigi on either side. None of the tours above stays in Lucerne, so if Lucerne tops your list, start with our Lucerne holidays page.
South of the Alps it's Italian Switzerland: lakeside promenades, palm trees, risotto and evenings that stay warm well into autumn. Locarno is on the Centovalli line, and Lugano sits on its own lake under Monte San Salvatore, with the train to Zurich through the Gotthard as the quick way north.
See our Lugano holidays page for the tours that reach the Italian side.
On these tours Zurich and Geneva are mostly where you land and leave. Bern's arcaded old town and the art museums of Basel, on the Rhine, don't feature on any of them. If you want a Switzerland city break rather than a mountain week, our guides to things to do in Zurich and things to do in Geneva are the place to start.
The Swiss network is an attraction in itself, and the scenery is why most people book. Here's which famous line each tour rides, and the booking rule you'd face if you did it yourself.
| Train | Route | Booking rule | Holidays that ride it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glacier Express | Zermatt to St Moritz through the Alps | Seat reservation compulsory, on top of a ticket or pass | The Best of Switzerland (to Brig) |
| Bernina Express | Chur or St Moritz over the Bernina Pass to Tirano | Panoramic cars only, paid seat reservation needed | The Best of Switzerland, Lake Como and St Moritz |
| GoldenPass Express | Montreux to Interlaken through the Pays-d'Enhaut | Reservation recommended, compulsory in Prestige class | The Best of Switzerland, Swiss Alpine Glories, Winter in Switzerland |
| Centovalli Railway | Domodossola to Locarno through the Centovalli | Regional line, no reservation needed on ordinary trains | Lake Maggiore, Zermatt and the Centovalli |
| Jungfrau cogwheel trains | Grindelwald to Kleine Scheidegg below the Eiger | Ordinary ticket, no seat reservation | Winter in Switzerland |
Planning an autumn trip around the Glacier Express? It takes an annual break from mid-October to early December, so check the Glacier Express FAQs before you set your dates.
Our Swiss rail holidays page compares these tours side by side, and the Glacier Express holidays page shows every tour that rides that line.
You don't need to be a climber to stand at the top. Cogwheel railways and cable cars do the work, and on a clear day the panoramic views reach across whole ranges of alpine peaks.
Our Swiss Alps holidays page goes further into the high mountain trips.
Most of these tours run from late spring to early autumn. That's when every high pass and summit railway is open, the meadows are green and the evenings are long.
| When | What it's like | Holidays running |
|---|---|---|
| April to May | Spring flowers by the lakes, snow still on the peaks | Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Best of Switzerland from May |
| June to August | Warm days, alpine meadows, everything open, the busiest trains | All the summer tours |
| September to October | Clear air, vineyard harvests around Lake Geneva, quieter trains | Best of Switzerland and Swiss Alpine Glories to September, the lakes to October |
| November to December | Festive stalls and the first snow, Glacier Express on its break until December | The Newmarket festive break |
| January to March | Deep snow, the ski season in full swing, frozen waterfalls in the valleys | Winter in Switzerland (February and March) |
Our guide to the best time to visit Switzerland goes month by month for a rail traveller.
Ordinary Swiss trains are easy. The panoramic ones are another story.
A seat reservation is compulsory on the Glacier Express and isn't covered by a travel pass. The Bernina Express runs only with panoramic cars, and the Rhaetian Railway says you need a paid reservation on top of a valid ticket. In summer those seats sell out early. Then there's the luggage: racks on the panoramic trains are small, and moving cases between hotels by yourself means either hauling them across platforms or sending them ahead a couple of days early with the SBB luggage service.
On an escorted tour that's all done. The seats are booked for the group, your cases go from hotel to hotel, and the Holiday Director or tour manager gets everyone onto the right carriage at Brig, Spiez or Tirano. You just look out of the window at the scenery.
Prefer to go it alone? Our Swiss Travel Pass guide and the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland page show how to put a trip together yourself, and Switzerland tour packages compares what each package includes, meal by meal.
Melted cheese, mostly. Fondue is the classic, with bread dipped into a shared pot, and raclette is scraped straight from the wheel onto potatoes. In German-speaking Switzerland you'll find rösti, crisp grated potato, on almost every menu.
Then there's the chocolate. Travelsphere's snowy week takes you to Maison Cailler in Broc for a chocolate-making session, then on to the hilltop cheese town for fondue. Around Lake Geneva, the white wines come from the terraced Lavaux vineyards, and south of the Alps the food turns Italian, with polenta and risotto in the grottos.
Flights are included on every tour here. Travelsphere lets you choose your UK airport, and The Best of Switzerland is open-jaw, into Zurich and home from Geneva. Newmarket flies from regional UK airports, to Milan for the lakes tours and to Geneva for Swiss Alpine Glories. Fancy the train instead? Our page on the train to Switzerland from London covers Eurostar and the TGV Lyria via Paris to Basel, Zurich or Geneva.
Switzerland isn't in the EU, but it's part of the Schengen area. Your passport has to meet the Schengen rules on its issue and expiry dates, and you may need to register your fingerprints and photo at the border under the new Entry/Exit System. Check the latest on GOV.UK Switzerland entry requirements before you travel.
The currency is the Swiss Franc, and cards are taken almost everywhere. Switzerland's national languages are German in the north and east, French in the west, Italian in Ticino and Romansh in parts of Graubünden. English is widely spoken wherever visitors go, and our guide to whether Switzerland is expensive covers what a coffee or a meal out costs.
Browse every tour on Switzerland by Train, or compare the cards at the top of this page.
HolidaysTrain to Switzerland From LondonEurostar to Paris, TGV Lyria into Switzerland, and how to make the change without the stressHolidaysTrain From Paris to SwitzerlandTGV Lyria direct to Zurich, Geneva, Basel or Lausanne, and how to pick the right city for the Alps
HolidaysSwitzerland Rail Tours on the Panoramic TrainsEscorted tours with flights, hotels and the seat reservations sorted, from the Bernina Express to the GoldenPass.Escorted rail holidays with the Bernina, Glacier and GoldenPass Express, flights and hotels included.