Some journeys are about the destination. Others are about how you get there. The Luxury Rail Journey through Switzerland is emphatically, gloriously both. In autumn, when the Glacier Express winds through valleys blazing with colour and the mountain peaks wear their first dusting of snow, this becomes one of the finest rail experiences in the world.
What First Class Rail Travel Actually Means in Switzerland
When Ormina Tours talks about first class travel in Switzerland, it isn't marketing language. Switzerland's first class carriages are spacious, panoramic-windowed, and immaculate. The seat reservation on the Glacier Express includes a 3-course set menu lunch served on board as the train winds through gorges and over viaducts. This is not a sandwich from a trolley. It is a proper meal, eaten in motion, with some of the most extraordinary scenery on earth sliding past the window.
The Swiss Travel Pass, included with this itinerary, covers every train, boat, and bus connection throughout the journey, including priority boarding to Gornergrat — the mountain railway that delivers you to the face of the Matterhorn.
Autumn is widely considered the best season to ride the Glacier Express. Summer sees the carriages packed. In September and October, the journey is quieter, the views are dramatically colourful, and the dining experience actually feels like the event it should be.
The Autumn Journey: City to Summit
The 9-day itinerary moves from Zurich's cosmopolitan sophistication through Lucerne's medieval lakeside beauty to Interlaken, then Zermatt, and finally to the high glamour of St Moritz. Each transition reveals a different Switzerland.
Zurich to Lucerne: Cosmopolitan to Medieval
A private guided walking tour of Zurich sets the tone for what this journey is — genuinely insider, genuinely curated. The Lucerne leg includes a private guide who takes you through the city's most significant stories, punctuated by a culinary tasting of local delicacies. In autumn, Lucerne's lakefront at dusk is spectacular.
Mount Pilatus: The World's Steepest Cogwheel Railway
The Mount Pilatus Golden Round Trip is one of Switzerland's most theatrical experiences. A lake cruise to Alpnachstad, then the steepest cogwheel railway in the world to the summit at 7,000 feet, then a reserved lunch at the mountaintop restaurant with panoramic views across autumn Switzerland below. The descent by cable car over pine forests glowing with colour is unforgettable.
Jungfraujoch: Top of Europe
The journey to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe at 3,454 metres, is extraordinary at any time of year. In autumn, the approach through Grindelwald and up through the Eiger delivers views of a high-alpine world above the treeline — entirely snow and glacier above, and a patchwork of gold and copper below. Lunch at Restaurant Crystal, with a reserved table and a glacial backdrop, is one of the itinerary's signature moments.
Zermatt and Gornergrat: The Matterhorn Up Close
Zermatt is car-free, which means the village sounds like Switzerland did a century ago. The Matterhorn rises above the town with the kind of physical presence that photographs never quite capture. Priority boarding on the Gornergrat cogwheel train puts you at 10,000 feet above sea level with views of 29 of Switzerland's four-thousand-metre peaks. In autumn, the valley below is fully in colour and the air is crystal clear.
The Glacier Express: Zermatt to St Moritz
291 bridges. 91 tunnels. 8 hours of some of the most extraordinary alpine scenery in Europe. The Glacier Express from Zermatt to St Moritz is rightly called one of the world's great train journeys. In autumn, the landscape it moves through — gorges, high passes, stone villages, larch forests turning gold — is at its absolute finest. The 3-course lunch is served as the train winds through the Oberalp Pass at 2,044 metres.
"The Glacier Express in autumn is not just a train journey. It is a moving portrait of everything magnificent about Switzerland."