TRANSPORTATION IN CINQUE TERRE: HOW TO GET THERE AND HOW TO MOVE

When planning a trip to the Cinque Terre of Italy it is essential to know the transport options well. Its peculiar orography makes the connections between these five coastal towns not easy, and is usually the main concern before visiting the area. Luckily there is a trick: use the train! In this article we will tell you how to visit Cinque Terre, how to get around and how to get here.

Although Cinque Terre is formed by five villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore), the base that we recommend the visit is La Spezia. It is the largest nearby town, with better accommodation possibilities and connected to other cities in Italy with fast trains and buses.

- Arrive from Milan: there are direct trains that pass through Genoa and arrive in La Spezia in just over 3 hours. The price is from € 14.90 and being an intercity train, we recommend you book well in advance to get the best options. By the way, in trenitalia there are some interesting promotions such as 2X1, so check their website before buying your ticket.

- Arrive from Genoa: the connections are constant between Genova and La Spezia, with regional trains and intercities. The journey lasts an hour and a quarter and if you do it with regional it is not necessary that you book in advance, being able to buy it at the station itself before leaving. The regional price is € 7.10.

- Arrive from Tuscany: If you are spending a few days in this wonderful region of Italy, you can reach La Spezia from Pisa or from Florence. From Pisa it is an hour and a quarter and costs € 7.80, and from Florence it takes two and a half hours and costs € 13.80. For both cases we recommend the fast regional ones, although there are more expensive Freccia trains.

You saw that our recommendation is to arrive by train, but if you decide to arrive by car, it is best that you also park in La Spezia and from here visit the villages of Cinque Terre. There are many Free parking in La Spezia:in Piazzale d'Armi, Palaspezia (connected to the center with free buses), and paid for the Parcheggio Porto Mirabello and another one near the train station.

It is not at all advisable to visit the 5 villages by car: the roads are narrow, the parking is scarce and the fines are abundant!

The most important thing you have to know is that, to visit Cinque Terre, the best option is undoubtedly to use the train. The five villages that form Cinque Terre, together with La Spezia, are connected by a railway line, with frequent and fast trains. For example, from La Spezia to the last town that is Monterosso, it takes only 23 minutes, including all the stops.

An example of a regional's schedule would be this:

Depending on the date of your trip, the schedules and prices of these trains change completely. During summer time (from mid-March to October, normally coinciding with the time change), the Cinque Terre Express service starts operating. While winter time there are regional trains and intercities. That difference will mark two things: frequency of trains and their prices:

- Winter time: there is a regional every hour, from 7 in the morning until 23, in addition to several intercities at different times. The price that is applied is the trenitalia officer and depends on the kilometers you travel, to sum up it would be € 2.80 if you go from La Spezia to Monterosso, and € 1.90 for each section between villages. The intercities are much more expensive and we do not recommend them, in addition they do not make stops in the intermediate villages.

- Summer schedule: With the Cinque Terre Express service, 3 trains run every hour between the 6 main stations. The price in this case is € 4 per trip, including the regional train that maintains its winter season schedule.

The bills you can buy them at the stations, or online at www.trenitalia.com. Those who buy online serve only for the schedule you have chosen, while those who buy on paper do not have a schedule and are worth 75 minutes from their validation. Then we tell you a little trick.

By the way, if you're not familiar with trains in Italy, to validate the tickets of regional trains that you have bought at the stations themselves you will have to pass them through a validation machine, which prints the date and time of that moment. You will find them near the ticket offices, automatic vending machines and platforms. That you will not forget!

Eye, even if the doubt comes, if there is reviewers. We on the fourth train we took were already thinking that no one was controlling here, and we just saw two reviewers putting fines. So don't play it and buy (and validate) the tickets. The fine is € 50!

In addition to the trains, there are the bus lines that connect the coastal towns of Cinque Terre with others inland. They are not interesting unless you stay in one of these inland villages. Although the one that you can use is the one that goes up from the station Corniglia to the center, and that will save you the ascent by more than 350 stairs.

There is a Cinque Terre pass that includes unlimited transport by trains and buses, in addition to the entrance to use the trails, WiFi in public places and a discount at the La Spezia museum. Its price is of € 16 for 1 day€ 29 for 2 days, and € 41 for three days. It can be purchased at the information points in all train stations. It is a personal card, but if it is a family trip there is the Cinque Terre Card family, for 2 adults and 2 children (between 2 and 12 years old) that can be profitable. The price is 42€ for 1 day duration.

When is it convenient? If your visit is during summer time (that is, when the trains are expensive), it is always advisable to take the pass. However, if you travel to Cinque Terre during winter time, you will have to calculate whether or not to take the pass, since the sum of all the tickets you use will probably be less than the price of the pass.

→ More info: //card.parconazionale5terre.it/

In our case, we first take the train from La Spezia to Monterosso (€ 2.80) and then another 4 to make the stretches between the villages (that is € 4X1.90) during the same day. Therefore we ended up paying € 10.40, instead of € 16. As the trails that need the entrance were closed (those that pass near the coast, that is basically the Blue Trail and Via dell'Amore), we did well to buy the individual tickets and save a little. But we could save even more, how? Keep reading…

If your intention is to buy the tickets individually for each section at the stations themselves, pay attention. These tickets are valid for 75 minutes from the moment of validation, to go from the origin to the destination you have chosen, but NOT for a specific time. This is the trick that we propose with an example:

• You buy a ticket from Monterosso to Corniglia, and validate it at 11:18 (therefore it is valid until 12:33). Price of € 2.20.
• You get on the 11:20 train and get off at Vernazza at 11:24 instead of Corniglia.
• You visit Vernazza in 1 hour and take the 12:24 train towards Corniglia.
• You arrive in Corniglia at 12:27, 6 minutes before your ticket expires.
• You pay € 2.20 instead of € 3.80, so you have saved € 1.60. Hehe

It can be applied in other combinations, but keep in mind that there are some villages that need more time to visit. Eye, we have not done it but it occurred to us just when we saw the details of the ticket, once in the accommodation (agrrr!).

We hope this post from how to get there and how to get around in Cinque Terre It has been useful for you. As always, if you have questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment!

Video: How to Travel in Italy By Train Cheapest Tickets. Rome, Florence, Venice (May 2024).