Please help with planning/advice on train routes in Switzerland

[lesscleverandrew]

I am planning to visit Switzerland for about 4-5 days (flexible), either next April or early July and want to tour without doing too many changes and backtracking.

Two routes that seem worth it are the glacier express and bernina express. However, the latter overlaps the glacier express between chur and st moritz (see below, it also crosses into Italy meaning backtracking or flying out of Milan)

The idea is to mix up one or two of the scenic routes with a 2-3 days in 2 or more places to chill and explore.

There is also the question of where to fly into and out from.

The glacier express website has a nice map showing airports and connecting trains:
https://glacierexpress.ch/en/route

I’ve read that Zurich has good connnections but looking at the map, Zurich is in the north and Zermat (the start of the glacier express) is in the south west

Does anyone please have any experience reports that could be useful

[lesscleverandrew]

Update: fly into Zurich, connect to Lucerne, golden pass from Lucerne to montreux then connect onto zermat looks promising.

[Bill]

Have a look at seat61.com there might be some relevant information on there

[rickla]

why not do the Glacier Express the other way around and finish in Zermatt? Zermatt to Geneva is very easy by train and obviously plenty of good connections out of GVA airport.

[Lady London]

If you want to do Zermatt-Chur-Tirano then fly into Geneva The train goes along the lake to Montreux then Brig. At Brig then change to Visp, ISTR, and when I worked in Zermatt it was land transport from Visp to Zermatt. I believe the other way in to Zermatt is to ski in from Italy somewhere like Cervinia?

Normally I’d choose to fly into Zurich as has best connections all ovet Switzerland but your first map makes Geneva look obvious to fly into.

Not sure about from Tirano but depending on transport available you might find Bergamo Brescia Milan Linate easiest to reach. But if you had a car and if a one way hire wouldn’t scalp you there are some nice routes. And recently-ish BA seens to have moved most of their flights to Milan Linate rather than Malpensa and Linate is easily reachable by the 73 ? City bus from San Babila.