from Cinque Terre to Venice
 

Hello. We are planning to go Venice after visiting Cinque Terre. Would like to ask for advise about the transportation from Cinque Terre to Venice. We checked on Trenitalia, the route will be La Spezia Centrale to Pisa then to Florence and finally to Venice. Is there any way not going back to Florence (we will visit Florence before Cinque Terre) but directly to Venice?
Thank you very much for your help!

Hi Nagnes,

My wife and I are doing the same trip - but in reverse. What we found is that the route via Florence uses Regional trains and requires up to four changes. However, you can also do:

Monterosso --> Milano Centrale --> Venezia S. Lucia

When you use this route, it requires only 1 change and you travel on the FrecciaBianca (bullet train) and InterCity trains - much nicer way to travel.

Regards,

Steve

The route via Florence (and possibly a change in Pisa) is still probably faster on average than the route via Milan, even with the fast train between Milan and Venice. The trains between Florence and Venice are also Eurostar trains, not regional trains, and some trains between Florence and the CT are IC trains (Manarola, and Corniglia, and Vernazza only have regional trains, though, I believe). For example, checking a few days from now, there's a connection from Monterosso that has 90 minutes on an IC train, 1 hour on a nicer regional train (has 1st and 2nd class), and then two hours on a Eurostar from Florence. 5:00 total time including layovers. By contrast, the connection for the same day via Milan takes 5:45 total travel time.

If you have a lot of luggage, though, the (possible) extra change of trains may negate the time savings of a half hour or so, I suppose. Looking at Trenitalia's website, costs appear to be roughly the same on both routes, give or take 10 Euros.

Thanks for giving me the ideas!

How about going by train to Pisa, and then take low-cost Ryanair flight from Pisa to Venice. Sometimes the air fares are really really cheap

When I did this last regional train to Parma then Garda/Venice was cheap and fine a full day on small trains though good price paid under 10 euro. Lucca then Venice on regionals also.
The best fastest trains will go up to Milano Centrale then Venice. seat61.com/italy