European Rail Travel - Croatia to Zurich

Want to make a trip either Croatia to Zurich or vis versa next summer, with stops along the way. Any suggestions on routing and which type of ticket to buy? There will two of us. We want to make a few stops along the way.

Difficult one to answer, I think - because it's so general!

However, as I did a similar trip 30+ years ago I thought I'd give it a try.

My trip was part of a longer journey (from Greece to Belgium), and I had an Interrail ticket - in those days there was only one type of Interrail ticket, one which covered all of the Western (NATO) and neutral countries, plus a couple behind the Iron Curtain (Hungary and Romania IIRC).

The route I took was Zagreb-Ljubljana-Venice-Milan-Brig-Bern (going through the Simplon Tunnel between Italy and Switzerland). Part of it was overnight, and I think I probably missed some nice scenery... the one thing I remember is being woken up by my seat neighbour (a complete stranger) as the sun was rising somewhere between Brig and Bern to point out some spectacular mountain scenery (I can still see it... that mountain top glistening in the sun!)

There is another more northern route, parts of which I have taken on other trips - from Ljubljana to Villach and then through Austria.

As for places to stop off... depends on the route you take, depends on what you're interested in. You have Venice and Milan on the Italian route (or perhaps one of the places along Lago Maggiore). If you go for the Austrian route you've got Innsbruck, or you can pick any of the smaller towns along the route, many of them are well-known mountain resorts.

Can't help with ticketing... a few years ago I would have said "get a railpass", but these days it's often cheaper to buy point-to-point tickets. I suggest you decide on a route, and a few places to stop, and then research what ticketing options are available.

The obvious ones en route that come to mind are Ljubljana, Bled, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Liechtenstein.