DIY Cinque Terre - needs advise

[holiday07]

We had booked Cinque Terre tour on Oct 23rd, 2012 through RCI . We are thinking of cancelling the reservation and doing a DIY.

 

Please share your experience and/or any information on how to get to Cinque Terre using the train.

 

We will be docked at Livorno port from 7am to 7pm.

[euro cruiser]

By train you go from Livorno Centrale to La Spezia, where you change to the local train that connects the five villages.

 

The first train direct to La Spezia is at 9:17 AM, but you could go earlier if you're willing to add another change of trains, at Pisa Centrale.

 

I advise passing up the cruise shuttle into town, instead take a cab right from the dock to the train station. You can get together with others and share the cab to lower the cost (about 25 Euro one way, but you can put up to six people in the taxi). If you get off the ship as soon as possible, and take a cab to the station, you should be able to make the 7:43 train to Pisa, where you can connect to the 8:09 from Pisa.

 

When you get to La Spezia you can purchase a ticket that covers park fees as well the the local train for the entire day, so you can hop from village to village as you please. Therefore, when at Livorno Centrale only purchase your ticket as far as La Spezia.

 

Be careful about the return times, as you have few fallback options. There is a 3:12 from La Spezia that gets to Livorno at 4:48, after that the only other departure that will work for you is at 4:07 arriving at 5:14.

[Hlitner]

Euro has laid out the train options and keep in mind that you would only get about 3:45 min in Riomaggiore which is not much time to enjoy much of Cinque Terre. Another option is to simply rent a car (companies such as Sifracar.com will deliver right to the pier) and drive. The driving option should get you to Riomaggiore about 2 hours earlier then the train and you could probably stay in Riomaggiore until 4pm. The drive takes about 1:20 - 1:30 and much of it (from Livorno to La Spezia) is on an excellent fast 4 lane Autostrade with the last few miles (La Spezia to Riomaggiore) on a 2 lane windy, hilly road.

 

Hank

[holiday07]

Thank you both for your reply. Where would we buy tickets that include the park fees at La Spezia? Would it be at the train station where we buy the local train tickets? Do you know what this ticket is called? If we are looking at the schedule correctly, it looks like it does not take too much time to go from La Spezia to Riomaggiore.

 

If I am looking at the train schedule would the destination be Riomaggiore from La Spezia. Can we take the train from Riomaggiore and go to the other villages such as Vernazza?

[euro cruiser]

The local train from La Spezia stops at all five villages. It only takes 23 minutes to go from La Spezia all the way to the northernmost village, Monterosso, including stops along the way at each of the other four.

 

You can buy the Cinque Terre card at the train station in La Spezia. The one day card including train fare was 10 Euro in 2011, I don't know if the price has changed this year.

[wristband]

Eurocruiser has given you excellent & accurate advice. The logistics may seem daunting but it really is easy to catch the trains and in La Spezia the TI folks at the station are well versed in dealing with tourists (along with bi-lingual displays and brochures).

 

A good part of the joy of the CT is to actually walk from town to town. However, if your stamina and the amount of time you can afford is limited, take the train from La Spezia to the third town, get off to walk to the fourth, then evaluate after the short walk if you want to continue walking onwards or hop the train.

 

Plan to have lunch in Vernazza - lovely setting, plenty of nice osterias on the waterfront with fresh fish and friendly staff to reward yourself.

[suzski]

Another option would be to book a private excursion, which is what we did last year during our port call in Livorno.

 

We used Tuscany Tours, which charged us 480 euros for 8 pax for the day. The tour started at 7:30 am and ended about 5:30 pm but did not include service between the villages (i.e., trains or boats)....but you can purchase day passes for those or just walk, if so inclined. They were a fantastic company and saved us the headache of worrying about the public transportation to get to and from Livorno. They dropped us off at the first town (Riomaggiore) and picked us up at the last (Manarola) at an appointed time, leaving us the rest of the time to do as we wanted.

 

Also, even though Tuscany Tours did not mention stopping at the Leaning Tower of Pisa on the way back, we asked and they stopped by Pisa for us so we could get the obligatory photo.

 

 

http://www.tuscanytours.net/index.php?from-livorno

[zoncom]

Really interesting area, worth trouble to get there.These villages are carless. Some have parking outside towns. Get one of Rick Steves books on Italy.Trains run when they feel like it so if time is tight I would go with above private tour. Wear hiking boots. .

[euro cruiser]

Trains run when they feel like it

Excuse me? Your comment is wrong, first of all, and not at all helpful to those trying to plan. Unless you have facts to support a claim like that, why post it on a public message board?

[maryann ns]

The trains run on a schedule which is posted at all the stations. They are quite frequent. We had a day pass for the ferries and took these as well.

[Hlitner]

Really interesting area, worth trouble to get there.These villages are carless. Some have parking outside towns. Get one of Rick Steves books on Italy.Trains run when they feel like it so if time is tight I would go with above private tour. Wear hiking boots. .

 

Geez, wondering where you get your info? First of all, the trains run on a schedule and do a pretty good job keeping to their published schedule (except when there are train strikes which are generally announced in advance). As to hiking boots, although that is certainly an option for hiking between some villages, we ourselves have done it quite easily with sneakers. And for the most popular walk (taken by many tourists and tours) on the Lovers Walk between Riomaggiore and Manarola and kind of footwear is fine (we often do it with sandals) as this is pretty much a paved walkway with plenty of benches for those who want to stop and rest.

 

Hank

[wristband]

May I echo to Hank & euro cruiseer? La Spezia train schedule is published and posted-CT trains run frequently and, yup, on time. Claims otherwise is, well, ignore that silliness.

 

You do not need hiking boots. I have walked the entire CT several times with only sneakers with no problem. I love Brooks but others like New Balance. Whatever - you will be just fine as long as you purchase the walking pass which is check frequently.

 

One of the great joys of Cruise Critic: there is so much good real-time information from people who know first hand what of what they speak. When spurious absurd claims are posted which lack basis in fact, others cheerfully work to set the record straight.

[doodlefan]

We did this last year and after trying to figure out the logisitcs and cost to get from the Port in Livorno to the train station and so on, we decided we wouldn't have enough time in the villages.

 

So instead we booked Tuscany by Taxi, which really isn't a tour company, more of a transport company. All we wanted was to be picked up at the ship and dropped off at the Southern most village, Riomaggiore to spend the day between the villages as we wanted. We did exaclty this, we were dropped at Riomaggiorre, walked the Via Del Amore walkway to Manarola (easy 20 minutes stroll along the ocean with incredible views) and then took a ferry from there to Vernaza and a train from there to Corniglia and Monterosso and then took a train back down to Riomaggiore to meet our driver for the ride back. We saved looking around Riomaggiore for the end of the day that way we'd be back in time to meet the driver and just use any extra time we had in that village. It worked out great.

 

It was a wonderful day made stress free by having reliable transport waiting for our return to the ship.

 

We posted this on our roll call and very quickly had 3 other couples wishing to join us for the ride to and from Riomaggiore. We all went our separate ways once there and saw the villages however we wanted. I think it was 400E, so 50 Euro each or 100 Euro per couple. We figured by the time we got a cab to the train station and bought the train ticket, it wouldn't be costing us too much for the convenience of a driver, not to mention we saved tons of time this way. It maximized our time in Cinque Terre.

 

Good luck, not matter what you decide the Cinque Terre area is wonderful and well worth it.

[Hlitner]

After reading the previous post it does sound like a private van/driver for 8 is a very good deal. For smaller groups (2 or 4) it also makes a lot of sense to simply rent a car which usually costs about 100 -130 (depending on the type of car) Euros. Sifracar (the local Hertz franchise) and some others will deliver right to the pier so this also saves the 40-50 Euro round trip cost of simply getting a taxi to and from the train station.

 

Hank

[holiday07]

Thank you all for sharing your experience.

Have they re-opened the Via dell’Amore trail after the Sept 24th rock slide?