Two weeks Austria + Switzerland Train Trip Sept 2019 Planning

This is quite a throwback as had not been very hardworking in update thing travel blog. Decided to do this now during the Circuit Breaker period due to Covid-19 as there is nothing much to do other then Eat , Sleep , Gaming + looking at past holiday photos.

Had always been wanting to go to the Swiss Alps to take a look , this is one of the bucket list, Last time i saw a TV show and they were showing how they take the train from the foot of the mountain to Top of Europe , the green below and the white on top , it's like visiting 2 seasons in a trip again. Decided to combine Austria together cos we thought that since Switzerland is expensive then maybe combine with a less expensive country to visit ( but we were wrong , Austria was not not really cheap too)

This was the itinerary for the trip , basically we try to spend one week in each country. The original plan was to fly in Vienna and out Zurich , but the airfares was a bit higher then so we decided to in & out both from Vienna airport with an overnight train from Zurich to Vienna.

Had already tried to plan a more slow pace travel but still ends up quite rush , esp when in Switzerland.This is a very train based holiday as Switzerland are famous for their train transport like Japan.

Some important site which i used with tons of information for helping me with my planning in this 2 countries ( Other then google map , tripadvisor, etc.)
Austria Train Site : https://www.oebb.at/en/
Switzerland Train Site : https://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html
SBB Daysaver Pass : https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/1-day-travelpass/saver-day-pass.html
Swiss Travel forum : https://www.myswissalps.com
Train travel information : https://www.seat61.com
Glacier Express Train : https://www.glacierexpress.ch/en/
Bernina Express Train : https://www.rhb.ch/en/panoramic-trains/bernina-express

As most of our travel are by trains , it helps to plan in advance and buy early bird tickets, most of our tickets are bought 3-6 mths in advance , those major train travel we will stick to the planned itinerary.Eg, For Vienna to Hallstatt, we bought at 29 Euro each , it could have cost us double if we buy it last minute. Also not only we got the Half Card , we also got Day Saver Pass for Switzerland ( available 60 days in advance ) It only cost 29 CHF ( to 49CHF so have to wake up every morning to snatch the tickets ) and it allows you to take any SBB train ( 2nd class for whole day ) , It also can be use for scenic trains like Bernina Express , Glacier Express. Eg. a 2nd class ticker for Glacier Express ( excluding the seat reservation of 33CHF ) will cost 150 CHF , but instead we had it for only 29 CHF ( but we took the first class at 49 CHF instead of 268 CHF ) So it's important to plan out itinerary and keep to it in advance also do compare all fare charges like early bird , actual fares and those special rail passes.

When you are traveling inter-country by train , you need to check the price on both train site in the two countries , cos we had an overnight train from Zurich back to Vienna and i found out that buying the tickets from Austria side using Euro was much cheaper then buying on the Switzerland train site which is in CHF and cost about 30 more)