Swiss Alps Train Tour: One Day from Milan or a Week by Rail?

Take the day from Milan if you have one day, are staying in Milan, and want the Bernina line with someone else handling the coach and the border. Take a week if the train itself is the holiday: the Glacier Express, the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland and a Swiss Travel Pass all start in Switzerland and run over several days. For the one-day Swiss Alps train tour, Milano Art Discovery’s day is 11 hours with 2.5 on the train, from US$166 a person, checked November 2026.

The calendar above is the one-day tour, with 5,111 reviews (checked November 2026). The longer journeys follow.

What one day covers, and what it leaves out

The day from Milan is a coach trip with a train ride in the middle. Milano Art Discovery’s runs Milan Centrale to Tirano by coach in a little over three hours with a break at Colico Piano, gives you 45 minutes in Tirano, then two and a half hours on the regional red train over the Bernina Pass to St. Moritz, past Alp Grüm and the Palü Glacier. After an hour and a half in St. Moritz, the coach takes three hours back to Milan over the Maloja Pass. A guide and an English audio guide come with it; meals do not.

It covers one railway, the Bernina line, which the Rhaetian Railway runs and which UNESCO has listed as a World Heritage site, with the Albula line, since July 2008. It leaves out the Albula line on most days (TAOTRAVEL’s St. Moritz-first day takes it to Thusis on certain dates instead), the Glacier Express, and anything north of St. Moritz. And it leaves out time: about six hours of the eleven are on the coach.

What a week by rail adds

A week is a different kind of trip, built on Switzerland’s own trains rather than a coach from Italy.

• The Glacier Express runs from Zermatt to St. Moritz in about 8 hours over 291 bridges and through 91 tunnels, with the Oberalp Pass at 2,033 m as its highest point (glacierexpress.ch). It does not run between 11 October and 4 December 2026; its winter timetable starts on 5 December.
• The Grand Train Tour of Switzerland is sold by SBB as an eight-day journey, The Original, or a seven-day one, The Classic, on the panoramic trains. The Grand Train Tour explained goes through what that means.
• The Swiss Travel Pass gives 3, 4, 6, 8 or 15 consecutive days of unlimited travel by train, bus and boat, panoramic trains included but not their seat reservations or surcharges, from CHF 254 in 2nd class and CHF 405 in 1st (sbb.ch, checked November 2026). What the Pass covers on the Bernina Express and the Glacier Express, and the seat reservation, has its own page.

Pick by the time you have

Prices, ratings and review counts from the listings (GetYourGuide, checked November 2026; Viator, checked November 2026). Operators price by date and season, so treat the figures as the shape of the market, not a quote.

Between 11 October and 6 December the Glacier Express does not operate, and both Zurich days then take the same route with an extra stop in an alpine village (Tours of Switzerland, TripsSource). In high season some guests on TripsSource’s day go on a different scenic train with the same route.

If you are not sure

Three questions settle it. Where are you sleeping: Milan points to the day tour, Zurich or Lucerne to a Swiss train. How many days can the train have: one, or four and more. And is the coach a problem: the day from Milan spends more time on the road than on the rails, which is it worth it? weighs up plainly.