Planning a trip to Switzerland and Paris took quite a lot of time for us especially because we want to travel within a certain budget.  I had three generations with me on the trip, from my 2-year-old daughter, to my 67-year-old mom.  Of course, with such an age range, my itinerary could not be too strenuous.  Travelling by train required some time to plan as there was a need to look at the train schedule and see which schedule fits the itinerary the best.

 

Getting around

The best way to travel around Switzerland is by train.  While planning this trip, I considered two choices (1) buy the 2 country Eurail Select pass (2) buy the Swiss pass, and separately buy a bullet train from Switzerland to Paris, and buy the local metro pass for Paris.  The second worked out to be much cheaper.  Furthermore, the Swiss pass allowed unlimited rides, not only on train, but on boats and buses as well.  It covered scenic train rides as well as discounts. It also came with a Swiss Family card which allowed children under 16 to travel for free with parents or guardian. At that time, it was the best deal that I could find.

When I collected my pass from the travel agent, the agent told me that since I was travelling with 6 people, including young kids and an elderly person, I should reserve seats for all my train rides.  With the reservations, my family would always be seated together, even for rides that did not need reservations.  She had a valid explanation, so I decided to reserve all my seats.  For those scenic train rides like the Glacier Express and the Golden Pass, reservations were compulsory.   In the end, the amount I paid for the train reservations was almost equal the amount I paid for the Swiss pass. I think reserving train seats when it was not compulsory to do so was not really necessary.  There were enough seats on the trains most of the time.

When we arrived in Switzerland and made our way to the train station in Zurich,  we were quite surprised by how efficient the trains were.  Don’t get me wrong. I know Swiss trains are known for its efficiency, but to me it was too efficient.  For some trains, the train doors opened for barely 1-2 minutes.  With about 2 steps leading up to the train, I wondered at that time how we were ever going to find the correct carriage according to our reservations, get our luggages up the steps and onto the train, and help two kids and my elderly mom up the steps, all in under 2 minutes!

I thought the least we could do was to stand in front of the correct carriage, which was the fifth one.  However, the trains that passed by before ours had carriages which were of different sizes.  The fifth carriage for different trains were different.  We were lugging our bags from one place to another trying to figure out where the fifth carriage for our train would stop.  It was only after our second ride that we discovered a board that showed the various trains, with different number and length of carriages.  It described clearly where one should stand for any specific carriage.  How I wished I had found such board in Zurich.  Oh well, it was a lesson for us.  After that, we were wiser.

Here was my transportation for Switzerland and Paris:

1.  6-day consecutive Swiss pass (from www.raileurope.com) used as follows:

Day 1: Train from Zurich (airport) to Berne

Day 2: Train from Berne to Brig. (Schedule at www.glacierexpress.ch)
Glacier Express scenic train from Brig to Zermatt. (Compulsory reservation)

Day 3: Train from Zermatt up and down Gornergrat station.
Funicular to/from Sunnega Paradise.
Train to Interlaken West.

Day 4: Train to Jungfraujoch via Interlaken Ost, Grindelwald and KL Schneigg (Bought tickets at the train station)

Day 5: Golden pass scenic train from Interlaken to Montreux. (Compulsory reservation)
(Schedule at www.goldenpass.ch)

Boat ride from Montreux to Lausanne.
Train from Lausanne to Interlaken.

Day 6: Train to Murren and Lauterbrunnen

Day 7: Interlaken West to Berne

For more details about train schedules in Switzerland, goto www.sbb.ch/en.

2. TGV train tickets from Berne to Paris Gare de Lyon departing at 7.30am arriving at 12-1pm.

3. Paris metro train tickets to Trocadero and back.

4. Paris Illumination tour – with pick-up and drop-off from hotel

5. Paris hop-on-hop-off bus tour

6. Paris metro train tickets to and from Disneyland Paris.

7.  Taxi to airport

 

To find out which trains require compulsory reservations, I went to www.eurorailways.com.

 

Accommodations

It was challenging to find accommodations for 4 adults and 2 children.  Most of the time, we ended up in two rooms.  I stayed at the following accommodations which were all walking distance from the train stations.  It was a good thing I did that, because taking taxi rides in Switzerland were very expensive.

1N in Berne (I stayed at Hotel Continental)

1N in Zermatt (I stayed at Haus la Perle, which had accommodations for 6 people with kitchenette)

4N in Interlaken (I stayed at Rugenpark B&B, which was voted no. 1 for B&B on Tripadvisor)

3N in Paris (I stayed at Unic Hotel, which had a double-storey apartment for 5 people)

 

Itinerary

Click here for my tried-and-tested  10-day Switzerland and Paris Itinerary

 

If I were to do this trip again

Managing suitcases up and down the train was the single-most difficult thing to handle during the trip.  If I were to do this trip again, I might consider basing myself in Interlaken, and then make day trips from there.  For Zermatt, which is too far to do a day trip, I could leave my main luggage in a locker at the Interlaken train station and just bring an overnight bag.

Also, instead of bringing two suitcases, I would bring only one large suitcase and substitute the other with a large backpack. This would enable us to go up and down the trains swiftly.

I would not plan the Paris Illumination tour late in the evening on the same day that we had to take an early morning train to Paris.  If it was not summer, it would not be too bad as the tour would start earlier.