Cinque Terre transportation

For more info:
tel. +39-0187-76-031 or 0187-762-600
www.parconazionale5terre.it

Tourist offices in the Cinque Terre: The Cinque Terre park authority (tel. +39-0187-76-031 or 0187-762-600 or 0187-762-640; www.parconazionale5terre.it) has offices in Riomaggiore at Piazza Rio Finale 26 and at the train station in Manarola.

You can do the hike between the villages in five or six hours if you really hoof it, but most people take two days and make it more of a leisurely stroll, stopping for long lunches, pausing at cafes, taking a few hours to splash in the surf off a pebbly beach, and enjoying a nice long dinner before returning to a hotel or apartment with a view of the moonlight reflecting off the Mediterranean Sea.

Our partners at Viator.com offer a well-regarded Cinque Terre hiking day trip out of Florence. It's a long (13 hours), but comprehensive tour, and leaves from the Florence train station at 7:30am. It includes bus transportation, rail travel between villages, hikes, a box breakfast, and lunch. Don't want to hike it? There's also a bus tour from Florence version that lets you walk the first, easy trail (Via dell'Amore), and also gives you time to wander four of the five villages (all save Monterosso; no great loss). Then there's the Cinque Terre: Sailing and Wine Tour from Florence. » book

Same as above, only leaving from Milano, the Cinque Terre Day Trip from Milan lasts 12 hours and stops first at Monterosso, from which you take a boat to Manarola, then hike the Via dell'Amore to Riomaggiore. » book

The Cinque Terre park authority (tel. +39-0187-76-031 or 0187-762-600 or 0187-762-640; www.parconazionale5terre.it) has offices in Riomaggiore at Piazza Rio Finale 26 and at the train station in Manarola.

They now have the temerity to charge you to hike the old goat paths between the villages. This ticket is called the Cinque Terre Card, and you can get one valid for 1 day (€5), 2 days (€8), 3 days (€10), or 7 days (€20). It includes admission to the trails, use of the (frankly superfluous) tiny buses in some towns, the occasional elevator, and entry to a few tiny museums (local history in Riomaggiore, wine in Manarola, and in Monterosso an aquarium and a museum of anchovy salting—no, seriously).

The Cinque Terre are well-served by a local regional rail line, but you will always have to change trains in La Spezia—and be prepared to do so; connection times are often pretty tight, so have your luggage in hand and be at the train door when you pull into the station. (Instead of La Spezia, some trains change at nearby Sarzana.)

Also, get in one of the first two or three cars of the train, since several of the stations in the Cinque Terre are very short (basically just an open stretch of tracks between one tunnel and the next) and back end of the train is sometimes left inside the tunnels.

I'm going to use Riomaggiore as our Cinque Terre base and give you train times to there; add 2–12 minutes to estimate the time it'll take to get to any of the other towns. Riomaggiore is pretty close to Pisa (75–95 min. total), Lucca (1:30–2 hr., with another change at Viareggio), Florence (2:15–3:33 hr., sometimes with another change at Pisa), and Rome (4:17–5:38 hr.).

If you're just hitting the trail for a day and want to store your bags safely while you hike, there's a deposito bagagli (left luggage) at the train station-adjacent tourist office in Riomaggiore (tel. +39-0187-920-633). It's open 8am to 8pm; bags cost €0.50 per hour each.