Cinque Terre and Lake Como in 5 days? - any advice or opinion
 

Hi, my wife and I travled to italy 2 years ago (rome-florence-siena-venice). We very much wanted to see Cinque Terre and Lake Como also but couldn't fit them in during that trip. At end of this may, we are able to get (exactly) one week off and are thinking about going to visit both places. My question is that are we trying to do too much (are they too far apart) in 5 days (flying into and from italy would eat up 2 days outta the 7-day trip)? Which airport is ideal for going to both places (milan vs florence). By the way, we plan on taking trains only; no driving this time. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.<BR>Thanks.

Sure, That is doable--Milan is your best option for air, but Pisa[not Florence] is another option. You need to look at the train schedules at www.trenitalia.com The sequence would depend on your take off time at Milan.<BR>However, are you sure you want to buy 2 tickets for only one week in Italy?

My wife and I did this in May of 2001. We flew into Milan, hopped a bus to the train station and took a train to Lake Como. We stayed two nights in Lake Como (beautiful, but I think two nights is enough), jumped on a train to Cinque Terre. Look for La Spezia train. We then spent 2 nights in Cinque Terre, which in our opinion was NOT enough. We're going back there again this year.<BR><BR>We travel with only backpacks, so train travel is a piece of cake. Good luck and have fun.<BR><BR>Mark

My opinion would be just the opposite of Mark's -- but that's what makes the world go round.<BR><BR>We spend two nights in Manarola on the Cinque Terra and absolutely loved it, but we did the entire walk in one day with a spectacular lunch in Vernazza. We could have stayed longer, but weren't sorry we didn't.<BR><BR>On the other hand we spent four nights in Bellagio and were kept very busy taking boats every day to various towns, villas, and gardens on the lake and now can't wait to go back for more!!

Hooray, the search function did bring this up. Here are the comments already posted to your question, wuicx.

Fly into Milan. Closest to your destinations and more flights.<BR><BR>You can bus (+/- 2 hours) to Genoa Central Station fro Malpensa. The train to CT is less than an hour.<BR><BR>You can also bus to Como from Malpensa and take a boat anywhere on the lake.<BR><BR>Both places can be covered in a couple of days. You'll enjoy them both.

Thanks for all your helps and comments. Yes, patrick, I realized I put out a similar post earlier; I had a very hard time getting through Fodors.com earlier and did not think my first post was successful.<BR>Again appreciate all your opinions.