Mountain express

Our whole Switzerland journey was originally inspired by a video A saw online of a train chugging along the magical frozen beauty of the Swiss mountains in wintertime.

The sheer beauty of it seemed so unbelievable that we both knew we had to do it. And so, we did!

Riding through the Swiss winter

Fueled by the romantic enthusiasm of riding trains in high and snowy mountains, we booked a flight to Italy and took the Bernina Express from Tirano to Chur.

The first two things you need to know if you ever decide to ride Swiss trains is that they are expensive and their ticket system is complicated!

While I can hardly be surprised by the fact that one of the most expensive countries in the world puts a premium price on scenic train routes, what I did not expect was all the complication with understanding their ticket system.

While all of the trains naturally require tickets, for some trains you additionally need to book a seat… which is essentially a second ticket.

And though there are different types of discount tickets, they do not apply to all trains nor are they linked to seat bookings so at the end of the day, you kind of have to map out your trip carefully lest you be stuck with the embarrassment of paying for extras on board. Which by the way, we had to…

Regardless of all that, it is simply worth it!

Starting from Tirano, the Bernina express gave us extraordinary views which were made even more cool by the panoramic windows of the train!

Third rail line to help on steep slopes

It is really not easy to put into words the 4 hour ride through the Bernina and the Albula lines (both UNESCO World Heritage) accross the rugged mountainscape that this train offers. Beautiful mountain peaks and ranges, lakes, snow and snowstorms, tunnels, viaducts and bridges.

So much beauty!

I could not help but think of the raw power of the nature that created such a beautiful landscape and somehow the scene from “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” where stone giants throw rocks at each other came to mind.

Snow covered mountains

But we were not done with the Swiss expresses yet, oh no!

Then again… technically we were. You see, we also wanted to ride the Glacier express line from Chur to Zermatt but we decided to do it through the regular trains instead.

The reason for this was threefold:

1- It is faster! The actual Glacier Express takes 8 hours and is appropriately called the slowest express in the world.

2- It is a lot cheaper! Especially if you do not get paid in CHF.

3- Though the panoramic windows of the express are actually great for sightseeing, they make photography difficult and we wanted trains where we could open the window to take pictures.

The big red Glacier Express

If you are tight on time, money or just want to take a lot of pictures, I’d advise you also take these things into account.

That being said, the regular trains in winter do not all have windows you can open nor do they have particularly clean windows so difficulties may be encountered.

To get around this, we had to move around the train to find the few windows that did open, which on the first train were on the (completely empty) bicycle transport wagon.

So yeah, boy and girl walk into an empty train carriage carrying a large camera. Nothing unusual there..

Another tactic A used was to clean the outside and inside of the windows while at the station. Embarrassing, sure, but goes to show how determined she was to take those pics. And everyone loves a determined woman!

Skiers exit right

Though the Swiss express experience was tremendous and had us in utter awe of the beauty around us, I would also recommend dosing it.

Too much of a good thing can be numbing and the truth is that at the end of our ride we found ourselves a bit desensitized from all we had seen.

If you can, take the time to take things slow and do not pack too many train rides in a row.

You will surely love it. All of it!