Alsace, Black Forest & Swiss Jura

Day 1 – London to Colmar

Morning departure on Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris, where we connect to a high speed train to Colmar. Our hotel for the next 2 nights is a short walk from the station.

Day 2 – Cité du Train

Taking a morning train to Mulhouse, we enjoy one of Europe’s largest railway museums, the Cité du Train. Offering an immersive journey through the history of French rail transport the museum is spread across vast exhibition halls, it showcases an impressive collection of locomotives, carriages, and railway artifacts dating from the 19th Century to modern times. We return to Colmar mid-afternoon for a leisurely evening.

Day 3 – Onwards to Martigny

After breakfast we travel via Basle to the Swiss canton of Valais and our next centre, Martigny. Our hotel for the next 3 nights is a short walk from the station.

Day 4 – Mont Blanc Express

Other than the main standard gauge railway there are two lines from Martigny. The metre gauge Vallorcine rack railway, more popularly known as the Mont Blanc Express, travels from Martigny southwest up to Vallorcine in the Alps. The second route is the standard gauge Le Chable/Orsieres line – there is the opportunity to ride both branch lines.

Day 5 – Park du Vapeur

Nestled on the shores of Lake Geneva in Le Bouveret, the Swiss Vapeur Parc is a delightful railway park that transports visitors into a charming, miniature world of Swiss heritage. The park features over thirty miniature replicas of iconic Swiss buildings, from the Castle of Aigle to quaint mountain villages, as well as bridges, viaducts, and tunnels carved into rolling hills and over 2km of miniature railway. We spend the day exploring the 19,000 m² park.

Day 6 – Golden Pass to Freiburg

Journey via Montreux on the Golden Pass Express to Spiez, and onwards via Basle to Freiburg. Our hotel is a short walk from the station where we have a 3-night stay. The Golden Pass line was conceived in the late 19th Century to connect Lake Geneva, Gstaad and lakes Thun and Brienz. The plan was to build an uninterrupted railway, but the line was built with two differing gauges requiring a change of train in Zweisimmen. Today’s modern trains, introduced in 2022, have gauge changing technology allowing the journey to be made without changing trains.

Day 7 – Wutachtalbahn

Today we visit the Wutachtalbahn, possibly the most spectacular preserved standard gauge line in Europe, or even the world. Built as a strategic railway on the Swiss border, the journey is from Zollhaus-Blumberg to Weizen. The line crosses huge steel viaducts and bridges and loops back on itself several times with even a complete loop in a tunnel giving the route it’s nickname the “pigtail railway”.

Day 8 – Kandertalbahn

We head south to Haltingen to ride the preserved standard gauge Kandertalbahn which runs 13km to the pottery town of Kandern. This steam railway has been kept as a historical working museum celebrating the heyday of steam.

Day 9 – Homeward Bound

After a leisurely breakfast we take a morning train via Karlsruhe to Paris to connect with the Eurostar to London St Pancras, arriving early evening.