Swiss and Austrian Alps Trip – September 2021

Here is our next draft of our latest planned Itinerary.  We had originally thought about going back to Varenna, Italy so that we could take the Bernina Express Scenic Train from Lugano, Italy to St. Moritz, Switzerland.  We had looked into taking this train ride on our last trip to Italy on 2019, but did not have the time to make the day long round trip journey.

However, while looking into train connections from Switzerland to Italy, we found out that there were no acceptable train connections from Interlaken, Switzerland (where we planned to be at that point in the trip) to Varenna, Italy without either backtracking to Zurich, or taking a long 15 hour train route through Milan and then back up to Varenna, not worth the effort or time.  

We are now planning for a return to Zermatt, Switzerland, from our stop in Interlaken.  We last visited Zermatt in 2012.  We were trying not to revisit cities we have been to before on the last trip to Switzerland, but we will be staying in both Lucerne and Zermatt again on this trip, mainly because there are some interesting things to do near Lucerne that we did not do last time.  Plus, we need to be in Zermatt in order to take the scenic Swiss Train called the Glacier Express from there to St. Moritz.  The Glacier Express in one of the longer duration panoramic train rides in Switzerland, and actually shares a portion of the route with the originally planned Bernina Express train.  As one would guess, and we are finding out, the mountainous terrain in this part of Switzerland limits the available train routes.  

Here is an excerpt about the Glacier Express Train

Of course, as we better define and determine which sights we want to see at or near the cities we show in the Itinerary, it may change.  However, based on our last trip to Italy, we enjoyed some of the longer stays, especially near the end of the trip when we were a little tired.

Preliminary Itinerary