Rail a good option for our short tour

WITH car hire costs sky high after the pandemic, rail appeared to be a good economical option for a short post-Paris Air Show tour of Switzerland and northern Italy.

Key to the strategy was to select hotels close to the railway station so it would be an easy stroll to our sanctuary for the evening.

Great plan, we thought.

We have this nailed.

Our first stop from Paris was Montreux, the Swiss Riviera, and our hotel was indeed a short walk, helped by a lift that took us down three stories to the foreshore of Lake Geneva.

We did not really think much about that lift and its assistance as we immersed ourselves in the beauty of the lake and surrounds.

Montreux certainly deserved its moniker of the Swiss Riviera and we wished that we had used the town as a destination rather than an overnight spot.

The next destination was Zermatt, and we took an early train to maximise our time at the home of the spectacular Matterhorn.

This required us to activate our Swiss Rail Pass.

We had purchased a flexible one, which meant we had to activate each day we were travelling and that was a pain as the pass, once activated, would not save to our iPhone wallets.

So, we had to take a screen shot and save to our photos to show the inspectors.

An excellent feature of Swiss Rail is the platform signage that shows you the train layout of first and second-class cars and where they will be positioned on the platform, when the train arrives.

A negative, however, is the space – even in first class – for large cases, although that issue is not confined to Swiss Rail.

At Zermatt the folly of our plan became apparent as the town, nestled next to the Matterhorn, is hilly and, in many cases, has cobbled streets, a huge challenge for rolling bags along to one’s hotel.

The challenge was even greater at our next stop St Moritz, with the homes of the rich and famous built on the side of a mountain, so we summoned a taxi to take us to our lodgings.

This would be the first of many taxis we were to seek, more than wiping out the extra cost of a car hire.

Our next stop was to be Lugano via the chaos that is the Italian train system.

We had arrived in Tirano and rather than take a three-hour bus trip to Lugano as part of the Bernina Express, we opted to take another train.

There were many negative reviews of the bus trip and with a dodgy knee I did not want to find myself crammed into a seat worse than Jetstar. So, we purchased a train journey via Monza.

In stark contrast to Swiss Rail, the Italian regional trains were covered in graffiti and the stations in serious need of a makeover – or at least some gardening to remove the weeds that were growing everywhere.

At Monza we had a connection and the board showed we had to move to platform one.

There were only stairs available and the folly of our decision to wheel our baggage was reinforced.

As the time for our connecting train neared, I noted that there was almost no-one on our platform.

A quick dash inside to check the departure board again revealed it was now platform three and a mad scramble ensued to catch our train. We sank into our seats and turned to each other and said: “We are not doing this again.”

Train travel, however, is superb but needs detailed planning and an absolute minimum of baggage.