How to get from Nice to Cinque Terre by train
 

I've been trying to figure out how to get from Nice to Cinque Terre by train. So far, my googling has told me that I need to take the train from Nice to Ventimiglia which is on the boarder of France and Italy, and then from there, on to Cinque Terre with a possible stop in Genoa.

My question:

What towns/cities should I search in the trenitalia or bahn.de websites to figure out this trip? I'm able to find trains from Nice to Ventimiglia, but I'm feeling very frustrated because when I try to search trips on either bahn.de or trenitalia from Ventimiglia to Montorosso OR even just to Genoa, they both keep telling me that no routes can be found. I tried searching trains for Nice to Genoa, but apparently there are no routes for that trip, either. I even tried Nice or Ventimiglia to La Spezia (even though that is a bit of a detour) and I get nothing.

What gives??

Help me, I'm starting to lose my temper :( Surely there must be a way to get all the way from Nice to Cinque Terre by train...Am I just making a stupid mistake that is causing my searches not to work? Am I typing in the wrong cities? I'm about ready to throw a temper tantrum here.

I have a rail pass so I'm not trying to book tickets. I just want to look at the schedules and see what time the trains leave and how often, etc.

Chill! Yes there is and it is pretty straight forward - yes take regional trains from Nice-Ville station to Ventimiglia and change there to an Italian regional or IC train to Genoa where you will have to change again - railhead for the Cinque Terre is Monterosso (more than one will show up in the search - not sure right now which one is the 5 Lands railhead - all 5 towns have rail stations and there is a local milk train that shuttles between the constantly - you could put in Riomaggiore, Corniglia and the other two names as well.

It will take most of a day because those trains are really slow - not high-speed, limping along on old rail beds and thru a string =of congested towns.

Check www.trenitalia.com for Italian prices and to buy online so you do not have to bother with buying a ticket in Ventimglia (possibly could buy it in Nice but I would not count on that)

For lots of great info on Italian trains check out thsee IMO fine sites - www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com.

Ok, ok, I'm chilling, lol. But seriously, nothing is working! I just tried searching trains from Florence to Venice, to see if maybe there was something wrong with the website, but that search came up with lots of hits. If I try Ventimiglia to anywhere Monterosso, Riomaggiore or Corniglia, it just keeps telling me no routes are available.

This is weird, right?

It's working for me at:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...0080a3e90aRCRD

Are you searching a date in the fall?

Nope, I'm searching June 24th!

Okay, I can't help you with your searching, but I can tell you that we did take a train from Nice to Levanto (just outside Cinque Terre.) We purchased tickets the day of travel and had one train from Nice to Genoa and changed in Genoa. As I recall the total trip was about 6 hours, including the stop.

Thanks; I do appreciate confirmation that there really ARE trains that will get me from Nice to Cinque Terre :)

Does anyone have any idea how often they go? We want to start early :)

I finally had some success finding the schedules on raileurope.com!

RailEurope.com does not show all the schedules always but trains they sell tickets on - they may not have regional trains, etc. The best online timetable I know to use is the German Railways one - www.bahn.de and a good way to reach its English schedule page is to go to the home page of www.budgeteuropetravel.com and click on the link :Best online European train schedule' (or some such wording) and up pops the English schedule page - I refernce this home page link because they also give you several useful tips on fully using the Wunderbar bahn.de site that may not be apparentat first encounter.

Put in Monterosso - the Monterosso Marche is not the correct one but simply Monterosso and Nice-Ville for the departure station. (Or put in any of the five Cinque Terre towns.

I did try that. In fact I tried both Monterosso and Monterosso Marche, but it just said there were no routes. I have heard that raileurope doesn't give all the options, but right now it's the only website giving my any options at all.

I will take a look at that website though, thank you :)

So it seems I've figured out the problem, at least with bahn.de. It looks like my date in June is too far away. I tried looking up the same start and end locations but with may dates instead of June 24th, and all of a sudden, lots of options came up!

So I guess it's just that the Italian rail system hasn't planned that far ahead yet? Any ideas when the schedule for June will be available?

Trenitalia is slow loading schedules (summer schedule starts 2nd weekend in June). You can't buy Nice/Ventimiglia on Trenitalia. There's no point in buying Ventimiglia/CT in advance either unless you find an IC train on the route and then you would only want to book the leg of the trip that is on an IC train, not the part on an R train. It's more likely to be R trains as most of your choices and there is no need for advance purchase of those (no discounts, can't sell out, more restrictions if purchased online). If you just want to see schedule times and prices, enter a date within the next 7 days (Ventimiglia/Monterosso - no Marche). Summer schedules will not change much if at all.

If you want to see French schedules/prices (Nice/Ventimiglia), use the French rail site, but it's only a few euro.

The schedule does not change that much. Right now, for Mondays, you can look up 5/20,5/27, and 6/3 at www.bahn.com, but not 6/10 and beyond. You can find this out this behavior by simple what if experimentation. So some June schedules are already available. So it looks like you need to start looking at your actual date about 3 weeks ahead.

I have better luck with bahn.de the German trains site. Here's an example of what I found:

Nice Ville Th, 23.05.13 dep 17:55 RE 86051 Regional-Express
2nd class only
Ventimiglia Th, 23.05.13 arr 18:43
Transfer time 15 min.

Ventimiglia Th, 23.05.13 dep 18:58 IC 747 Intercity

Genova Piazza Principe Th, 23.05.13 arr 21:06
Transfer time 52 min.

Genova Piazza Principe Th, 23.05.13 dep 21:58 IC 687 Intercity
Monterosso Th, 23.05.13 arr 23:12

Thank you, thank you everyone! I was so confused as to WHY I couldn't find anything...you'd think it would have occured to me sooner that the dates were the problem.

kybourbon: so I suppose it's probably best if we just show up at the train station on the morning we wish to depart and hop on a train (we have eurail passes)?

I feel much better now. I just wanted to get an idea of what times we could leave, and if the length of travel would change according to the time of day, how many train changes we'd have to make, etc.

On bahn.de I see daily trains leaving Nice-Ville at 6:25 am and 7:56 am - the first one arriving in MOnterosso at 12:39 pm and the latter at 13:30pm - not much later and a later start - these trains do reequired a change of trains at Ventimgilia - arrive there at 7:12, depart 7:48 am on a train that goes direct to Monterosso - no change required in Genoa.

The latter link changes train sin Ventimiglia, Genoa Principe Po, Genoa Brignole and then regional train to Monterosso.

With a railpass you can hop on regional trains (marked R in www.bahn.de schedules but on IC trains you may want a reservation - I understand a new policy has some IC seats being unreserved and thus available on a hop on bases but I am not sure of this being so on all IC trains (or even any as I cannot see any confirmation of that - those IC reservations cost just 5 euros I think - or schedule a routing with all Regional trains you can just hop on.

Buy your seat reservations for the Nice-Ventimiglia IC train route early. The French railway limits the number of seat reservations for pass-holders.

No not on the Riviera shuttle trains - those are regional trains you just hop on - Mimar is talking about TGV trains very few of which even serve the Nice to Ventimiglia route so as you cannot even make reservations on those trains just get on with your pass and that is all that is needed.

If you take the 6:25 am from Nice (you said early start!) then you get to Ventimiglia at 7:12 and leave there at 7:48 on a regional train that takes you all the way to Monterosso. And with a railpass you can definitely just hop on that regional train all the way to Monterosso, arriving there at 12:39 with much of the day still available to explore that wonderful area.