Travelling on Trains in Italy
For those that has never travel around in Italy on their trains may have some worries how to get around. Where to buy the tickets, how to buy, should we buy in advance or not. Reading Internet posts talk a lot about validating your tickets and the penalties involved. This applied to me before our trip and in the end all when well and so I would hope this short simple section can help travellers like us.
Milano Centrale Train Station |
Validating Your Tickets
Tickets that you buy over the counter allows you to travel on the scheduled train and up to a few hours in case you miss the train and there is another similar service running the same way. Before you board the train, you need to validate your ticket at those small terminals usually located near the platform and sometimes close to the ticket sales counter. For one place, we couldn’t find it on the platform and need to walk all the way back to the underpass that links the different platforms to get it validated. The tickets has a QR code and once you slot in the ticket into the terminal, wait for the printing sound and the green light at the top of the terminal to complete before taking the tickets out. After that you are good to board the train.
Tickets purchased over the counter. |
Getting Around
From Malepensa Airport to Switzerland
Just to share, for the train option, one has to take the train from Malepensa Airport to get to Milan Centrale and from there to take the intercity train to get to Brig or other cities of Switzerland. In our case we took the airport express bus to bring us to the Italian border town of Domodosola, and from there we took the short 20mins regional train for just one stop I think to get to Brig.
Bus stop 6 for the Bus to Domodossola (outside this door at terminal 1) |
Malpensa Aiprort, Express bus waiting area |
Swiss train service SBB at Domodosola heading to Brig |
Brig Station (Switzerland) |
Post-Auto Bus at the Saas Fee bus terminal |
Saas Fee bus terminal |
From Zermatt to Lake Como
The fastest way from Zermatt to Lake Como is to take the train from Zermatt to Brig and change to the intercity city train all the way to Milan Centrale Station, and from there to take the regional train from Milan Centrale to Varenna Esino station at the shores of Lake Como. This is the only village station of Lake Como that is accessible by train and so many tourists will come to this station to take the ferry to get to the lakeside town of Menaggio and Bellagio which many use them as base to visit and explore Lake Como.
Milano Centrale Train station |
Intercity trains crossing the border between Switzerland and Italy (maybe applies to other European countries as well) will be subjected to customs officer checks. They will check your passports and ask you some generic questions. This wasn’t the case when we travelled from the Italian border town of Domodosola into Brig of Switzerland. Maybe it was a weekend or maybe it was just random checks.
We started off from Zermatt station around 8:45am and reached Milan Central around 11:30pm, waited for the regional train at 1:20pm and reached Varenna around 2:20pm. From the Varenna Esino station, it was a short walk to the ferry pier but with some heavy luggage can be a moderate workout if you are carry backpacks like us. The ferry takes about 20mins on the lake waters to get to Bellagio which was where we were based.
Varenna-Esino Station (Lake Como) |
Lakeside town of Bellagio |
Lake Como to Cinque Terre
Not much to write or to guide. The fastest way is simple to head back from Varenna Esino station at Lake Como, back to Milan Centrale station and transfer to the regional train to Genoa and subsequently to any of the 5 towns. Cinque Terre actually means 5 towns.
Riomaggiore station, Cinque Terre |