Bernina Express travel guide: riding the scenic train from Milan to Chur

The Bernina Express is the named scenic train Rhaetian Railways runs through the Alps between Tirano in Italian Lombardy and Chur in Graubünden, Switzerland. It is easier to fit into a Milan-anchored trip than the route map makes it look. You take a regional train two and a half hours from Milan to Tirano, board the panoramic Bernina Express there, and ride four hours through 55 tunnels and 196 bridges across the Alps to Chur. The line itself is the point. The panoramic windows are an upgrade rather than the experience.

These are working notes from a real trip that was booked less than a week before departure rather than a polished tour-operator pitch. The point is to give you the version I wish I had read before buying my own ticket.

On this page

• The short version
• Getting to Tirano from Milan
• What the Bernina Express actually is
• Booking without overthinking it
• What you see on the route
• Chur is worth a little time
• If the Bernina Express is sold out

The short version

If you are already in Milan, the Bernina Express is a realistic full-day rail trip. Take a regional train from Milano Centrale to Tirano, board the Bernina Express there, and ride north through the Alps to Chur. From Chur you can continue deeper into Switzerland on the standard SBB network or stay the night and treat it as a small Alpine city stop.

The cleanest path is to book the Bernina Express directly with Rhaetian Railways at rhb.ch. If you have lead time, comparing cheaper booking paths through Deutsche Bahn (the canonical write-up is on Mark Smith's Man in Seat 61 site) can save real money. First class is comfortable, but the core experience is the line itself. The viaducts, the climb to Ospizio Bernina, the lakes, and the shift from Italian Lombardy into Graubünden. Same train, same view, two cabin classes.

Getting to Tirano from Milan

The Bernina Express does not start in a major city. Most travelers arriving from Italy reach the southern endpoint at Tirano on the regional train from Milano Centrale. The journey takes about two and a half hours, dynamic pricing does not apply, and you can buy the ticket from a kiosk at the station the day of travel.

Validate your ticket before boarding. Italian regional tickets are open-dated until you stamp them, and you stamp them at the small green machines on the platform. If you forget, the conductor can treat the unvalidated ticket as fare evasion. How strictly depends on the conductor. The system runs on the assumption that you stamp. Do not skip the green-box step.

Trenord and Trenitalia run the Milano-Tirano line roughly hourly through the day. The mid-morning departures from Milan get you into Tirano in time for a Bernina Express departure at lunchtime, which is the most common shape of the day. Pack a snack and water for the platform-to-platform transfer. Tirano is a small station and the food options are limited.

What the Bernina Express actually is

The Bernina Express is the named scenic service operated by Rhaetian Railways (RhB) between Tirano in Italian Lombardy and Chur in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. The route is not high-speed. The train runs slowly through the Alps in panoramic-windowed cars built for sightseeing rather than fast transit. The full journey takes about four hours.

The route crosses the Bernina Pass at Ospizio Bernina, which sits at 2,253 meters. That makes the Bernina Express the highest adhesion (no rack-and-pinion) railway crossing in the Alps. Higher rack railways exist in Switzerland (the Jungfrau Railway reaches 3,454 meters at the Jungfraujoch, for example), but those are a different mechanical category. Most travel writeups conflate the two.

The line was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2008 as the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula and Bernina Cultural Landscape. The engineering, including 55 tunnels and 196 bridges across the Albula and Bernina sections, is the reason for the inscription rather than the scenery alone.

The trains themselves are panoramic-window railcars in two classes. First class has 1+2 seating, second class is 2+2. Both have reclining seats and air conditioning. Wifi has been added on some services but is not consistent, so do not plan to work the whole way.

Booking without overthinking it

Tickets sell out, especially in summer. Book directly from Rhaetian Railways at rhb.ch if you want the cleanest path. If you have lead time and want the cheapest fare, the Man in Seat 61 booking method through Deutsche Bahn saves real money. The catch is that the booking flow is less straightforward.

A seat reservation is mandatory on the Bernina Express even if you hold a Swiss Travel Pass or a Eurail/Interrail pass. The pass covers the underlying transport. You still pay the seat reservation supplement (currently around CHF 32 per leg in summer, CHF 28 in winter).

The first-class decision is less important than the booking timing. The 1+2 layout in first is nicer than the 2+2 of second. The cabin is quieter and the windows are the same panoramic glass. It does not change the mountain or the viaducts. Pick whichever class fits your trip. Do not over-rotate on the class question.

What you see on the route

The standard Bernina Express stops, in order from Tirano to Chur:

• Tirano, Italy. The southern terminus.
• Poschiavo. Small Swiss alpine town in the Italian-speaking Val Poschiavo.
• Alp Grüm. High-altitude station with the Palü Glacier view.
• Ospizio Bernina. The high point at 2,253 m, on the lake.
• Pontresina. Small Engadin valley town.
• Samedan. Junction station above St. Moritz.
• St. Moritz. The famous resort. The line splits here.
• Filisur. Small station, beautiful approach.
• Thusis. Bigger valley town. The line drops into the Rhine valley after.
• Chur. Northern terminus.

Two stretches are the photographs everyone takes. Between Brusio and Poschiavo the line spirals through the Brusio circular viaduct, a single-track 360-degree loop on a stone bridge that the train wraps around itself like a screw thread. Between Filisur and Thusis the train crosses the Landwasser Viaduct, where the line emerges from a tunnel directly onto a curving stone arch over the river.

If your itinerary lets you choose, southbound (Chur to Tirano) is the slightly more dramatic direction because the climb to the Bernina Pass reads as a clearer ascent than the descent. Most travelers ride northbound from Tirano because Milan is the natural southern anchor and the day shape works out cleaner. The view is real in either direction.

Chur is worth a little time

Chur is often described as Switzerland's oldest city. The claim is based on archaeological dating that puts settlement on the site at roughly 5,000 to 11,000 years (depending on which dig you cite). The precise "oldest continuously inhabited" framing is contested by other Swiss towns. Either way, it is a small, walkable Alpine city worth a half-day if you are ending the journey there. The old town is compact and the train station sits right at the edge of it.

A reasonable Chur night: arrive late afternoon, drop bags at any of the small hotels in the old town, walk the cathedral and the old-town streets in the evening light, dinner at one of the wine-bar restaurants on Reichsgasse, train out the next morning. One night does the city. Two if you want to use Chur as a base for further day trips into Graubünden.

If the Bernina Express is sold out

The Bernina Express run is not the only way to ride this line. The same tracks are used by RhB regional trains between Tirano and St. Moritz, which run more frequently and cost less. They do not have the panoramic cars, but the windows in the regular carriages are large enough that you still see most of what makes the route worth riding. If the named Bernina Express service is sold out for your dates, the regional service is a reasonable backup. You change at St. Moritz to continue toward Chur if that is the route you want.