Last year we went on somewhat of a road trip, that took us in and out of Italy and Switzerland.
My Grandma-in-law was Swiss and passed away recently so whilst her funeral was in England (as she's lived here for decades), over 20 of us went to a couple of different places in Switzerland where she'd lived to remember her amazing life and to meet up with Swiss relatives.
Which is better - taking the train or hiring a car in Italy and Switzerland?
We live in South West England so we wanted to fly from Bristol. On the Swiss side, this wasn't the most convenient option, as from Bristol we'd fly into Milan Malpensa - but we figured we'd rather have picturesque train rides across Italy and Switzerland than just a long boring road trip driving to a London airport here. However, despite checking trains months ago before we booked our flights, the day before we were flying I found that one of our connections to get back to the airport gave us 4 minutes to run from a railway platform to a bus stop outside… with 3 kids and lots of luggage. So we spent the best part of the day deliberating what to do and in the end decided to hire a car.
Ends up there were pros and cons of either approach. The Swiss trains - known for their punctuality - actually let down some other members of our family on the trip. Meanwhile, some others had issues with their hire car breaking down (which thankfully we didn't). Costs wise, by the time we'd added kids car seats and break down support to our order, it was around £600 which would be about what our train tickets would have cost. The difference here though was that we had to pay fuel on top (and at the pump we stopped at, only the premium fuel was working - think they spied the tourists from the kiosk). We also bought a separate insurance policy. We hired our car from Europcar and the basic insurance included in the price had a £2,000 excess - so if you had an accident, you'd be liable for the first £2,000 of any expenses incurred. To reduce that excess, the bolt-ons cost up to £200 extra, so instead we paid for an annual policy designed to work with hire car basic policies (so you're not doubly insured).
With regards to the car seats, we paid to hire a car for our 2 year old, who is rear facing in the UK - but the seat we were given could only accept rear facing until 9 months. And we paid hire what - in the picture on the website - was a high backed booster (so, a full seat) for our 6 year old. Instead we got a basic booster cushion, which I could have brought from home for no money (Easyjet don't charge you to take car seats) so I am raising a complaint to Europcar about that. Our 10 year old is quite tall and so doesn't legally need a car seat in the UK (but still usually uses one), but from what I read online you've got to be 150cm to not have a seat in Europe (whereas it's 135cm over here) so we took a booster for him.
The actual car drove really nicely though and was just about big enough for 3 kids in car seats in the back (probably just as well the 6 year old only had a booster cushion) and our luggage.
The main issue with driving was the roads. Condition wise, they were great - but as we neared Pontresina, there were some seriously windy mountain passes! Add in some rain, mist and poor visibility and it's very scary! We drove into Pontresina via the Maloja Pass - you can see a Google Maps screenshot below - whilst other drivers from our party came in via the Bernina pass. We went home via the Bernina pass and it added 30 minutes to our journey back to Milan but it was a lot less scary and we preferred the views and roads along the way too.
If you are buying train tickets, we found this website very useful in explaining how the different passes work. If you do book in advance, you can save some money depending on your specific requirements, and something I read there said that if you miss the train you booked, you just pay the extra to top up your ticket - so it's not wasted if your flight is delayed. We had decided against getting the kids rail passes as they were going to save about £30 over the course of the week but would have required passport photos and going through some process in Switzerland to get actual physical cards made. The SBB website - the official rail website on Switzerland - seems great at first glance, but the navigation isn't actually very helpful when you just want to buy tickets, and putting our 2 year old in just kept breaking the system. The website doesn't tell you (during the process of buying tickets) but kids under 6 don't need a ticket, however we still entered his details because we weren't sure if he needed a free ticket or needed to be at least counted. But we just kept hitting a dead end of the website breaking, so in the end we got the message not to include him at all on the order! Lots of places also encourage you to download the SBB app but when I did this it seemed to be asking for my Swiss Railcard account details in order for me to login (which I don't have). Most of the trains on SBB are also bookable via thetrainline.com which is generally a much better user experience so you might want to try that instead - although it didn't seem to know about ALL the trains so if you can't find a route on it, try SBB before you give up.
Visiting Lugano
We arrived at Milan Malpensa T2 and walked maybe 10 - 15 minutes to get to the hire car centre; it didn't feel like far. Then after some long seeming paper work, we went up in an elevator to where the cars were parked, and took a while trying various car seats they had (many of which needed a hoover/clean) until we found the best we could.
We then set off for Lugano, Switzerland. Once in Lugano, this was where we came across our first experience of a twisty mountain road, up to our accommodation. The views however, made it worth it. Mountains are pretty but for me, throw a lake into a view - or just any water really - and it's magnificent.
Something to be aware of is road tolls - if you see a sign over the road about a toll, take note of the website you need to visit to pay the fee, as apparently you can be followed up afterwards if you don't pay. And we encountered at least one of these roads between Milan and Switzerland.
Holiday house in Lugano
Our holiday house in Lugano needed a car really - there was a bus stop a 10/15min walk away but that would have been hard work with luggage and 3 kids, and there was no local shop to buy supplies. It was also better suited to older kids and we had an extremely stressful few days there with accommodation over 3 floors, hard tiled stairs between each floor, small landings and very few doors - meaning you couldn't shut a toddler into a room to keep them safe from the stairs. We also had an accident with our 6 year old knowing over a glass vase which was being used to hold cooking utensils and was on the end of a work top next to the stairs / bannister, so as she used the bannister and then the work top to come down the steep stairs, she caught the utensils. The house was lovely, and would be great for older kids or adults - but it was stressful with young kids.
I felt one small bin liner for Weds - Saturday wasn't really enough (when you've got a baby with nappies) and whilst the videos the host email of where the communal bins were (and the parking and the house itself) were brilliant, we could have done with knowing about the bins and recycling before the last day. We also had some concerns with the booking process and general communication with the host, as booking.com insisted we should pay on arrival but we were getting automated emails from the host asking us to pay before we arrived via another portal. Given how much fraud booking.com seem to be battling lately, we wanted to play but the host wasn't replying to our emails or booking.com DMs. We had Google'd the hosts' email address and found it on an official Swiss tourism website, so felt it was all probably legitimate, but it wasn't very reassuring. In the end I rang the host, who asked me to text them so they could translate the messages - and was told, the day before we flew, there was no cot available, despite us being told we could request one at the time of booking (which we did) and despite us messaging to confirm it several times afterwards. I received a follow up message shortly afterwards to say they'd tracked one down, and they also provided a high chair when we were there so that was a lovely example of initiative I felt, and it meant I had somewhere to keep the 2 year old slightly contained amidst the steep stairs and hard surfaces!
We all slept really well in the accommodation with even the sofa beds being super comfy. The pillows were just small cushions really so that wasn't great for my husband who usually sleeps with a neck pillow but he survived and slept well otherwise - possibly because he had a bed to himself as I slept downstairs with the boys rather than them be on the ground floor on their own and us be on the second floor (with the main living area on the first floor between us). Our daughter slept on the second floor in her own double bed / sofa bed, but it's very open plan to the only actual bedroom in the house so whilst it is absolutely fine for a family, it wouldn't be great for a group of adults.
I need to give a special shout out to the balconies at the property though - the view of Lake Lugano was exceptional and it was gorgeous at all times of day, with the lights of the city twinkling at night.
We arrived on a Wednesday night, had a Thursday to explore Lugano - read about what we did in a day in Lugano here - and then spent Friday with family, having first a memorial service in a nearby village and then a lovely meal at TCS Camping Lugano-Muzzano. We were also allowed to use the pool - although some people just had a dip in Lake Lugano itself - which was wonderful, being in water surrounded by the lake and mountains.
Driving to Pontresina, Switzerland via Lake Como.
On Saturday we got up and drove to Pontresina, which took us back into Italy and included a stop alongside Lake Como for lunch (€7 pizzas in Italy vs 16-20 Fr. in Switzerland), before braving the Maloja Pass and arriving in Pontresina. We did drive around St. Moritz on the way into Pontresina as we had to go through it anyway, but we couldn't find anywhere to park and to be honest, as a town it didn't look that exciting. My sister-in-law said pretty much the same when they were for a day later in the week.
We stayed at Hotel Muller - although we actually stayed across the road in one of their suites so that we had 2 bedrooms and a small kitchenette, which meant we could invite their cousins over for some basic pasta and pesto to save money on meals out (and the suite wasn't any more money than a hotel room for the 5 of us). The suite / apartment was in a 400 year old building, renovated to have some very modern stainless steel alongside the creakiest floorboards you've ever encountered. Our bedroom ceiling was very low, and the small windows meant the apartment was very dark but that could easily be solved by better lighting (all the lamps were nice, but when you're just hunting for a kid's shoe in the dark and you're in a hurry to go out, you just want to be able to put the big light on). We had plenty of space though, and the sink / hob / fridge were very handy for a family, along with the 2 bathrooms. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law had a suite with bunk beds in the main hotel and if you can get that, do! It was flooded with natural light and had a huge balcony/outside terrace (which you wouldn't want to leave the kids on unattended) - so if you can manage without a kitchen and a second bathroom, that seemed like a very nice space to be in.
Is Switzerland expensive?
We ate in the hotel on the first night and whilst it wasn't cheap (the cheapest main course was 25F, which is about £21.50) it was truly delicious. There was also a kids menu with lower prices. Meanwhile a dessert of ice cream was 3.50F, so that was actually very reasonable (but the exact same dessert was 3F for the kids). Another place we ate at had Margherita pizzas from 16F, but most pizzas were over 20F, so easily twice the price of Italy.
However, everything we ate or experienced in Switzerland which was expensive, was also really good. A punnet of tomatoes in Coop might have been 4F, but they were far tastier than what we usually get from Asda over here.
We also had a fancy ice cream in Lugano which was 7.50F, but we all felt it was far superior to a mediocre ice cream you'd probably be charged £4 for over here.
Engadine Pass: Swiss travel pass
A fantastic surprise when we got to our hotel was that we were given an Engadine travel pass which covered all of the public transport in the region. As a result, we didn't pay for a bus, train, cable car, chair lift or funicular railway the whole time we were there. We didn't realise this was going to be included with our hotel stay, so check with your hotel before you buy a travel pass separately.
After a very special few days in Pontresina, which included the chair lift to Alp Languard, seeing the Morteratsch Glacier, going on the Bernina Pass Mountain Railway and going to Diavolezza, we drove back to Malpensa, dropped the car off very easily, and headed back to Bristol.
To be honest, with a toddler in the most un-toddler-friendly house ever, driving on scary mountain passes, and that same toddler being sick in Pontresina and us worrying that it might be altitude sickness, it was a very stressful holiday at the time. But everything was SO BEAUTIFUL, when we got home, we were just so grateful that we got the experience to go. Lugano is lovely, but the things we did and saw in Pontresina I'll remember forever (I hope!).
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