Arriving at Franklin

New undergraduate and graduate students should arrive between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 16. Check-in will take place in the Grace Library on the Kaletsch Campus at Via Ponte Tresa 29. If you are delayed or need assistance please call our help lines:

+41 91 986 5329 - during regular weekday opening hours (8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.)

+41 79 211 4689 - after regular weekday opening hours and on weekends (5:00 p.m.–8:30 a.m.)

Students who do not arrive on campus by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 16 should call Franklin’s emergency number at +41 79 211 4689 the day they arrive to coordinate a meeting with the Resident Assistant on Duty so they can get into their residence hall. Please note that if a student arrives after 5:00 p.m., it is their responsibility to ensure they review the information in their orientation packet and understand its contents.

Graduate students who have arranged to live in Alba Residence who arrive between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 16 may report directly to the residence hall at Via Besso 1, 6900 Lugano. Graduate students arriving after 11:00 or who will live in a residence hall other than Alba should plan to report to the Kaletsch Campus at Via Ponte Tresa 29 for their check-in with the other students.

You can get to Franklin several different ways – most people fly into Milan or Zurich and then take a bus, train, or taxi to the Franklin campus. 

The Lugano Centrale Train Station is about a 20-minute walk or five-minute taxi ride to the Franklin campus. The Alba residence is across the street from the station, and you can walk there in a few minutes. For directions to campus by car and more information about Lugano, read our page on visiting Franklin. Visit our interactive campus map to see exactly where campus buildings and residence halls are.

The Milan Malpensa airport and Zurich airport are large, but they are certainly navigable if you are prepared. Check out our introduction video to the Milan and Zurich airports!

We recommend visiting the website of the Swiss Federal Railways, which you’ll often see referred to as SBB CFF FFS (these are the acronyms in three Swiss languages). Many people at Franklin refer to it as SBB, the acronym in German. SBB Mobile is a smartphone app that many people in Switzerland use to check transportation timetables and even buy tickets for trains, buses, small commuter rails, and trams. It’s a very handy app, and we strongly recommend you download it.

We strongly recommend that you check out the SBB Mobile smartphone app to view timetables and even purchase tickets for Swiss trains and public transportation.

When traveling by train in Italy, using the website of the Italian railway system, Trenitalia, is a good place to find timetables. Sometimes, tickets for Italian rail travel are cheaper when purchased within Italy, though you can buy international tickets in Swiss train stations.

Two other airports service the Milan area, but they are smaller and have a different set of connections: Linate and Bergamo (Orio al Serio). Buses from each of those airports connect passengers with the Milano Centrale train station.

Before COVID, there were several means of getting to Lugano from Malpensa. The Office of Student Life has compiled an information sheet about the train schedule and several other options, but please note that some are temporarily not available. We recommend that students bookmark this page, however, as some of the options may be available later. We recommend that, for now, students opt for trains, as they are more reliable and consistent, especially if one is traveling with luggage.