Hey everybody! After eighteen months of planning it's only 10 days til we leave. Yikes. Thanks to all of you for your help (even if you didn't realize it) in the planning.

Anyway, is a day trip from Florence to Cinque Terre doable? We won't die if we don't make all five towns. A good sampling will do us just fine.

Thanks in advance!

Sara (and pals)

I think it's doable, I did it with no problems. We spent one day and one night in Florence, then took a train to Cinque Terre and even stopped by Pisa for a couple hours on the way. I am a quick traveller but it still was pretty easy. Cinque Terre was my favorite part of my entire 6 week, 7 country backpacking trip. We did and saw a lot but I still reccomend Cinque Terre to everyone!
We rented a little boat there really easily and just drove way down south till we discovered another city, it was amazing and might be something fun for you to do there other than all the hiking, which might wear you out a little, but it's worth it!
Good luck!
Linzy

A boat! What a great idea! Not that we mind hiking, but one of us is a sailor (she bought herself a new sailboat, in fact) so she might get a kick out of traveling by water.

Thanks, Linzy!

Sara

it is definetely doable. if you do a search under my screen name you can see my itinerary under italy trip report. email me if you have questions.

we did it in a day from siena.

You must must must go to Cinque Terre. I had no problem hiking through all five villages and spending a few minutes in each one in half a day. If you get tired, the train will take you to the next village in two minutes. It is absolutely stunning- the pictures you take on the hike along the coast will actually look like the postcards you can buy, which almost never happens to me

I never heard about the boat idea, but I have to say, the hike is pretty amazing- the view from way up high up as you look down onto the villages and across the coves is breathtaking. The path takes you through olive groves and small houses built directly into the walls of the hills and then in winds down into each village, which are very cool in and of themselves. The word that comes to mind is "magical", even thought I'm not a big cliche person. I'm not sure you'd get the same experience looking up from sea level.

Chris, wow, what an adventure getting there! It sounds like it was great once you did, though. And I have to thank you for something else... for six years I've been trying to track down a hotel that was mentioned in passing in Florence, to no avail. Then voila, I read your trip report and there it is! The Hotel Porta Rosa. It's too late for me to change our plans this time but I've printed out the website and am stashing it for next time!! Thank you!

Thanks, also, Kmfbella. If there's any chance of me taking photos that look decent, I'm all for the hike The last time I was in Florence I thought faeries had taken over my camera because the photos were so darn good. I'm hoping that same good photo karma comes along this time.

Thanks everyone for the input. It's greatly appreciated. Off to weed my packing down to one bag now...