On our recent trip to Switzerland, we had a Swiss Travel Pass which allowed us to travel on any train (and many other modes of transport) in the country – including the panoramic trains such as the Glacier Express and Bernina Express!
These trains are pricey, so we decided to make the most of our passes and do both while we had the chance. Now it’s worth noting that they are not free with the pass – the ticket is included, but the seat reservation is not. You need to buy a seat reservation regardless of whether the ticket portion is free with a pass, so either way we saved a bunch of francs.
Both trains are great and I’d recommend them if you have the time and budget. But maybe you don’t want to do both and you’re wondering which is better – I have a few opinions on that, but equally both have pros and cons. I’m going to write up a comparison of both trains so hopefully it’s useful.
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We got the 09:52 Glacier Express from Zermatt, getting into Chur around 3.30pm. During the summer, there is also a 07:52 and a 08:52, but I wanted to give us some extra morning time in Zermatt in case of some more last-minute Matterhorn views.
The following day, we took the Bernina Express at 08:17, arriving in Tirano at 12:49. After enjoying some lunch in Italy, we headed back north on a regional train at 3pm. I had planned to stop at Morteratsch glacier for a walk and then hop on the next train an hour later, but ultimately we decided not to because it was a long day out as part of a busy trip.
Here’s everything you need to know about both the Glacier and Bernina rail journeys, including the routes, scenery and service.
The routes & scenery
The Glacier Express runs from Zermatt to St Moritz, an epic eight hour journey across a large portion of Switzerland.
The Bernina Express, meanwhile, runs from Chur to Tirano, taking in the same first couple of hours towards St Moritz before bypassing the town and continuing south for another couple of hours.
We did what a lot of people do: got off the Glacier Express at Chur, and then took the Bernina for its full route the following day. This breaks up the journey really nicely, and it means you’re not really missing anything from the Glacier route by getting off early.
I will add that eight hours is a long time to be on a train, and I think if we’d done the full route to St Moritz, we would have been waning and we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the last couple of hours as much as we should have. It was much better breaking it up and starting afresh.
My favourite part of the whole journey was between St Moritz and Alp Grum, so in terms of overall views, the Bernina actually wins this for me.
Everyone raves about the picture-perfect Landwasser viaduct (pictured above), which features on the route for both panoramic trains between Chur and St Moritz and is certainly a highlight, but there are actually loads of scenic bridges along the route, and my other favourite one is the Brusio spiral viaduct on the Bernina.
Don’t get me wrong: the Glacier route is beautiful. It really ramped up around Andermatt into the Oberalp pass, and the views are open and expansive virtually the whole way. And when the Bernina started off through enclosed forests and we had to snatch glimpses of rivers and valley views, I didn’t think it would match up.
But then it opened up more, and more, and once we were past St Moritz, we had glaciers, an even better mountain pass, a stop for photos at beautiful Alp Grum, and the aforementioned spiral viaduct.
So, highlights for me on both journeys, in chronological order:
- the ascent out of Andermatt
- the Oberalp pass
- Rheinschlucht, a beautiful gorge which I sadly got zero photos of
- the Landwasser viaduct at Filisur (and many others on this part of the route)
- Morteratsch Glacier
- the Bernina pass with Lago Bianco
- Alp Grum
- Brusio spiral viaduct
Five of these are on the Bernina Express, including the Landwasser viaduct which is on both routes.
Winner: Bernina Express
Read more: A Spectacular 10 Day Rail Itinerary In Switzerland & Liechtenstein
The trains
The trains for the Glacier and Bernina are slightly different. The Glacier has a large vertical window and a smaller upwards-facing window, so there’s a window frame breaking up the view (not that this really affects the view at all!). The Bernina has one giant window curved up at the top.
In terms of the trains themselves, the Glacier Express feels much fancier inside. The Bernina just felt like a regular train that happened to have huge windows.
Both had the same layout in 2nd class, and fold-out tables with chargers underneath. The wifi didn’t work for us on either train, but even without internet it does let you load the train’s homepage where you can track where you are and find information.
As well as this, there are audio guides on both trains. I preferred the Glacier for this because they provide headphones and there’s a little ding-dong every time they’re about to start talking, and you can set it to your own language. On the Bernina, all the audio is done through the speakers on the train, which means it goes on for a while in a few languages – and also people just talked over it so we couldn’t hear most of it!
Winner: Glacier Express
The service
Far and away, the service on the Glacier is much better than the Bernina. The staff were all dressed up in smart uniforms, people around us had table settings ready for food, and it felt like we were in a fancy restaurant that happened to be on a train. The service was constant; staff offering drinks and serving food all throughout the journey.
Even the conductor checking tickets was entertaining and approachable; everything about this was an experience.
In all honesty, the Bernina just felt like a regular train in terms of service too. It was possible to buy food, but the staff weren’t readily offering a food service, and there wasn’t a pre-booked three course meal service (or at least not in 2nd class). That’s why it was quite surprising when they appeared and handed out little cartons of tea, along with these super cute tins of chocolates!
All four people opposite us had a full three-course lunch service on the Glacier Express, and while we eventually caved in and treated ourselves to a glass of wine, we didn’t have anything else at all on our table and we’d all brought supermarket sandwiches and biscuits for the journey. The two people next to us were clearly backpacker types, a bit like us, so it definitely felt like two very different sides!
Anyway, I can’t therefore comment on the food, but it did look good.
Winner: Glacier Express
The stops
Both trains stop at several stations en route, and both stop at one for long enough for you to get out and admire the view without a huge hunk of glass in the way.
The Glacier Express stopped at Disentis for around ten minutes, so a few people got off to check out what they could see from the platform. Honestly? It felt more like a leg-stretch stop than to appreciate a particular view. I’ve also read that the Bernina has the advantage of including a stop, indicating that the Glacier doesn’t, so I’m wondering if we were actually just ahead of schedule and it’s not normally an opportunity to get off the train? Or it may have been that we were waiting for an oncoming train, as this happened quite a few times on both journeys.
The Bernina Express stops at Alp Grum, about half way between St Moritz and Tirano, and this is a proper stop where everyone got off to enjoy the view. This was actually incredible, and one of my highlights of the trip!
One thing I’ll say in terms of station stops is that the Glacier does include some popular stops like Andermatt, and starts and ends in Zermatt and St Moritz, so overall it’s a great journey in that respect. The Bernina stops feel much more remote and not necessarily locations that you’d specifically visit as a destination, so you’d be most likely to do the full route.
(That said, I read a brilliant guide to the Bernina route here, if you’re looking for more information on what to do along the route.)
Winner: Bernina Express (with a caveat regarding the start and end points)
The cost
Now for the big one – what’s the price difference?
For seat reservations alone, the Glacier Express cost us 49CHF each, and the Bernina was 36CHF each. This seems to have gone up for the 2026 season to 54CHF and 40CHF respectively. Seat reservations are mandatory on these trains.
We didn’t pay for tickets as they were included in the Swiss Travel Pass, but ordinarily you’re looking at 159CHF for the Glacier’s full route, or 124CHF for the Zermatt to Chur portion that we did, and 66CHF for the Bernina.
That means you’re paying up to 213CHF for the Glacier, and 106CHF for the Bernina.
First class is 272CHF for the Glacier (212CHF for Zermatt to Chur), and 113CHF for the Bernina.
That’s a huge difference!
One thing to note is that the Bernina Express does have a couple of unreserved carriages at the front – these are just regular RhB carriages and not the panoramic ones. It’s a risk turning up for these because you don’t know how busy it’ll be. As an alternative, I’ve got some information below about riding the regular regional trains as an alternative as well.
Winner: Bernina Express
Overall: the Bernina Express has won 3/5 of the categories! It’s just up to you which of those you’d prioritise for a train journey.
Read more: A Whirlwind Tour Of Belgium: Ghent, Antwerp & Brussels
Booking the trains
You’ll need to buy a seat reservation regardless of any passes you’re travelling with, and then an additional ticket if necessary. With the Swiss Travel Pass, you don’t need to buy a ticket, just a seat reservation.
The seat reservations open for the Bernina Express a whopping six months in advance, so this was literally the first thing we booked for the entire trip, after the flights.
The seat reservations for the Glacier Express open three months (93 days, to be precise…) in advance, so I had to set a reminder in July to do this!
This could be a factor in deciding which one to do if you’re not booking too far out, because the window seats will go quickly. So if you’re not booking the Bernina that far in advance, you probably won’t get one.
One thing to note for the Bernina is that it’s best to sit on the right hand side going south (so the left hand side going north)… HOWEVER, there is no way of telling which side you’re booking, because they don’t configure which way the carriages will be facing in advance. This also means you don’t know which way will be facing forward. Which I think is a bit silly, but there we go. So basically, it’s a lottery – in which we got lucky!
On the Glacier, it doesn’t really matter what side you’re sat on – both have fantastic views.
You can book the Bernina Express on the RhB website here.
And you can book the Glacier Express on their dedicated website here.
The Man In Seat 61 has a hack for getting cheaper tickets for the Bernina Express if you need to buy them as well.
TIP: you can download the Grand Train Tour Of Switzerland rail app, which offers fun features like collecting stamps on your journeys, as well as facts about where you’re travelling through. Some of the stations have physical stamping points too – like Japan! – but I couldn’t find the one in Lucerne and then completely forgot to look in the other stations we went to!
A note on photography on the panoramic trains
The panoramic trains are notoriously bad for photography, and I found this reputation to be VERY ACCURATE. Unless you manage to have your camera up against the glass, your photos WILL come out like this:
Still, makes for some creative album covers, I suppose. Ash will be dropping his emotive indie single imminently.
On the Glacier, I don’t think there was anywhere you could stick a camera out of a window. On the Bernina, there was an open window opposite the toilet. Unfortunately I found this out AFTER we had passed the Landwasser viaduct (AND it was on the right side, as well!), and therefore all my photos of the crossing came out like this:
Now you can see why I’ve been using the one from the regional train, which you can read more about below.
Honestly, don’t hold out too much hope of getting great photos on the panoramic trains unless you plan in advance to use the limited open windows that may or may not be available; just sit back and enjoy the views.
So on that note…
What about the regional train?
We only took the regular train from Visp to Zermatt the day before, so I can’t really talk about taking the regional train as a viable alternative to the Glacier Express for the rest of the route from Visp to Chur. It seems like it would be much more complex, with a train from Zermatt to Visp (1 hour), then on to Andermatt (2 hours 15 mins), then Desentis (1 hour 10 mins), and finally Chur (1 hour 20 mins). This gives the Glacier Express a huge advantage in terms of convenience, and helps it to finally live up to its “express” name.
However, the regional train between Chur and Tirano is great. There are two optional changes because of the train line layout, so the trains run in and out of St Moritz, but it’s much quicker to change at Pontresina (if you’re travelling north) or Samedan (if you’re travelling south), take the short 5 minute train between those two stations, and then jump on the next train to arrive from St Moritz.
We were going to use the detour to our advantage to stop and see St Moritz, but in the end it was such a long day that we decided against it. But that’s definitely a possibility!
What we originally planned to do was take the regional train back up to St Moritz and stay in nearby Celerina. Unfortunately our plans for the following day were changed, and we needed to get to Liechtenstein early for an activity, so we had to scrap the night’s accommodation and stay further north instead.
It’s also possible to get off the train at a station en route and then get back on the next one, usually an hour later. Especially with a Swiss Travel Pass, where you don’t need to worry about buying tickets. So I’d also planned a potential stop at Morteratsch Glacier for a walk at 16:43, getting back on the train north at 17:40, but as above we decided to just make a straight run back.
The best part of the regional train, and a huge bonus if you want those photos: you might get windows that open!!
Might being the operative word.
We took the train from Tirano to Pontresina and almost all the windows seemed to open – but they are rolling out new stock and many of the new carriages do not have windows that open. Luckily, we jumped on a train at Samedan into a carriage that did, but we noticed almost all the carriages further forward had new windows – as you can see from my Landwasser viaduct photo at the top of this post.
So, these would be my options:
- If you want a fancier experience with great service, take the Glacier Express.
- If you want a slightly cheaper way to see what is, in my opinion, the best scenery on the routes and stop for some epic photos on the way, take the Bernina.
- And if you want to do the best part of the two routes but don’t want to pay for a seat reservation (or book so far in advance), either try your luck with the unreserved carriages on the Bernina Express, or take the regional train between Chur and Tirano.
In all honesty, my favoured itinerary overall would be to start in Italy, take the Bernina Express north to Chur, and then the Glacier Express across to Zermatt. But with Switzerland being the focus of our trip, we didn’t have time to add proper time in Italy, so I didn’t want a flying visit just to get into Switzerland – and I also quite liked the idea of getting the regional train so I could actually get decent photos, so doing the Bernina route both ways worked well. (And helps me to compare the options for you!)
Read more train travel inspiration: The Perfect One Week Norway Itinerary For First-Timers
How to spend a couple of hours in Tirano, Italy
“Wow, there really is nothing to do here, is there?” Ash remarked as we wandered down another street with nothing.
We arrived in Tirano at 12:49 and left at 15:00, so we literally only had a couple of hours there. We saw a few people who were getting the Bernina Express back up as well, which meant they were leaving at 14:24. That really is a bit tight! Even with nothing to do.
Because of course, we were in Italy, which meant there was something to do: eat.
Barefoot In Jandals had recommended Parravicini Restaurant & Wine, so I noted it down and we planned to walk straight there. When I saw it also recommended in the Bernina Express booklet on the train, we walked a little faster to beat everyone else.
We needn’t have worried though, because there were only a handful of other people from the train. I groaned when the two women who had walked slightly faster than us got the last table upstairs, but it didn’t matter when we were led downstairs into the brick-walled cellar instead. Such a cool atmosphere!
It was a fancier place than we’d been expecting, but without being stuffy or expensive. The staff were nice and the food was divine. Can’t really ask for more than that!
I also grabbed an obligatory gelato on the way back to the station, but other than that, we were ready to move on.
A couple of quirky things to do in Chur, Switzerland
While I’m at it, I might as well talk about the other end point of the Bernina route, because in all honesty there’s not a lot to do in Chur either – a lot of people will only be visiting as a stopping off point for the panoramic trains. Chur is the oldest city in Switzerland, so the Old Town is worth a wander, but we didn’t spend a lot of time there.
Instead, we headed out to Chur West station in search of a quirky bar.
HR Giger, famed for his iconic design of the Alien movies, was born in Chur and opened a bar here – and it is SO cool! I just wish it was a bit more central, as it’s about a half hour walk from the Old Town, which is why we took the train to Chur West.
There’s also a fountain in the city centre with some interesting Giger designs.
Oh, and then we went to (and I promise you I don’t do this very often!) McDonald’s for dinner. Because it’s in a pyramid.
So there we go. Our experience of Chur was mainly a bar with amazing film-related decor, and a funny-shaped McDonald’s.
Oh, and it probably goes without saying that there’s plenty to do at the other end of the Glacier route, in Zermatt. Unfortunately we didn’t end up seeing St Moritz so I can’t share anything about that, but the walk around the lake looks lovely.
Read more about our amazing time in Zermatt here!
Where to stay
Naturally, we stayed somewhere a bit unconventional. (Us? Unconventional? Never!)
We had originally planned to stay in Chur one night, at Hotel Franziskaner, and in Celerina to break up the journey back north, at Chalet Speciale (for £85, as opposed to five minutes away in St Moritz where even youth hostels started at double that). The obvious choice would be Chur both nights, especially because it makes more sense to leave your luggage at a hotel.
With our plans the following day being uprooted, we needed to be close to Liechtenstein, so any normal person would have added on a night in Chur after all. With the hotel costing an extra £30 for some reason, I started looking elsewhere and came across a pretty looking town called Bad Ragaz, just 5 minutes from the Liechtenstein border and 15 minutes from Chur.
It actually is a nice and very quiet spa town, but we didn’t really get to see it as we had to be up really early both mornings. It’s also a bit of a walk to the train station unless you manage to time it well with a local bus, so it wasn’t my best decision. We stayed at the Hotel Krone b-smart, which was only £110 per night including breakfast, saving us a whopping £80 on the Chur hotel for two nights. So there’s that…
But honestly, I would just recommend what we originally planned to do, or do the sensible thing and spend both nights in Chur!
Anyway, as usual our plans had to pivot to accommodate other plans. I never do things the easy way!
The other option would be to only travel one way to Tirano, and carry on to the Italian Lakes or even Milan. Tirano is well connected to the lakeside towns on Lake Como, so my ideal port of call would be Varenna or a town nearby.
Read more: Milan & Lake Como: Two Days In Northern Italy
We were very tempted by this, but we’d rather do a dedicated trip to the lakes. If we’d had a few days to spare, we could have done this and then either taken the train back up from Lugano to Zurich or flown home from Milan, but unfortunately our lack of remaining annual leave put a stop to that.
For the other way, I highly recommend Le Mazot Zermatt, where we stayed for one night. We loved it and you can read more about our time in Zermatt here.
So, which Swiss panoramic train do I think is better?
Both have their merits. I personally preferred the Bernina for the overall scenery, but the Glacier is above and beyond for service. It really depends what YOU want out of the trip.
I also think the Glacier is a more convenient route, as Zermatt is such a staple destination in Switzerland, and St Moritz is extremely popular too, whereas Tirano is really just a hub for the Bernina on the way to somewhere else (and I felt the same about Chur, too – but it’s at least well-connected within Switzerland). That said, it’s cool to cross over into Italy on such an iconic train journey!
On that note, both the Glacier and Bernina are iconic. Both are bucket-list journeys, and for very good reason, so in all honesty, I don’t think you can go wrong with either.
Here’s a video I’ve put together of both our train journeys.
What do you think? Which panoramic train journey would you prefer?
Read more about Switzerland here:
⭐ A Spectacular 10 Day Rail Itinerary In Switzerland & Liechtenstein
⭐ Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken & More: Three Incredible Days In The Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
⭐ A Day In Zermatt & A Million Photos Of The Matterhorn
⭐ Visiting Three Countries In A Day: A Trip To Basel, Switzerland
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Beautiful! Regardless of whether you take Glacier Express or Bernina Express, both trains offer stunning, panoramic views of Switzerland; I’d be happy taking either one! Dining in a pyramid-shaped McDonald’s wasn’t something I would expect in Switzerland, but looks cool! Thanks for sharing your scenic journey with us, Clazz! 🙂
Excellent overview of both trains. I’m not quite sure just yet which one I’d like to take but you made great points for each possibility even the regional train.
A useful post for people weighing up their options. We’ve done the Bernina so I reckon we should go back and do the Glacier Express for comparison’s sake, at the very least!
Such a great write up! I’d love to do both one day 🙂