Hi All! Hubby and I are going to Italy at the end of October this year (18). We're staying 4 nights in Rome when we land, and were originally tossing around staying in Florence. However, we'd both rather see Pisa (I know there isn't much there, and will only take an afternoon), and I really want to see Cinque Terre.

My question is, where is the best place to stay in/near Cinque Terre, and then how would we get to Venice? From what I can find online, it appears we have to take a train to Milan, then the high speed train to Venice from Milan.

I'm checking out hotels in Monterosso, does that sound like a plan? We both realize that we won't see all 5 villages this visit, and do understand there's a lot of up/down hill hiking (we're in our mid 60's so have no illusions about hiking all 5 villages LOL) Just looking for everyone's input as to staying in Monterosso and then getting over to Venice

Thanks for any ideas/suggestions you can offer

Here's a recent thread on where to stay in the Cinque Terre:
where to stay Cinque Terre
If the weather is good, you can easily see all 5 villages in a day. The problem is that weather doesn't always oblige, particularly in late October, so you basically need to give yourselves 2 days just to have a chance of seeing more than the inside of a torrential rain. I trust you realize that many of the main trails are closed? If you want to visit all 5 villages without some serious hikes, you use the train or ferry.

For your transportation options, see rome2rio.com

4 nights is not much for Rome....

Hope that helps!

Try the Trenitalia website to check train connections:

Trenitalia - Homepage English - Trenitalia

You'll find you'll have to go through either Milan or Florence, with a couple of connections, to get from a Cinque Terre town like Monterosso to Venice. (Use Italian names on that site like "Venezia" - and you want "Venezia Santa Lucia" for the Venice train station.) Travel time is roughly the same either way; sometimes it's better to take a longer route if the connection times or departure times work better for you or something.

You could easily see all five villages with two days in the Cinque Terre - the villages are connected by frequent local trains to get you from town to town in minutes. Unless you are hiking the entire time, I'm not sure why you wouldn't see all five; Monterosso is the largest but a few of the others are tiny. Corniglia is up on a hill above its train station; be prepared to hike up some steps to get up there or take a shuttle bus (not sure how frequent they run in late October). You can also take a tourist boat between towns; not sure about the schedule in October, check.

Stay in whichever town you wish. Sometimes apartments or B&Bs are better deals than hotels in this region. One advantage of a larger town like Monterrosso is that more of the express trains stop there so fewer train connections getting to/from the region (otherwise, you must connect to one of the local trains to the smaller towns - not really a huge hassle but something).

I would stay in Rapallo (or Camogli or Santa Marguerita) all of which are about a 45 minute train north of the CT. However, they are all interesting, nice towns but with more to do if the weather is bad. If you get nice weather go down to the CT, if the weather is not good you can easily go north to Genoa (which has a great aquarium which would be good to do in the rain). If you do get good weather and get to the CT you don't need to hike to see all the towns, they are connected by train and it's easy to just stop in each village, check them out, hike a short ways out side of the village to get the great views, and move on to the next. You know there will be a possibility of rain, and staying in Monterosso in the rain would be really dreary.

Thank you kja We'll be staying back in Rome for two more days before we fly back home

We're looking to relax a bit and just take in the local surroundings in Cinque Terre Hopefully, the weather will be good.

For booking trains check www.seat61.com for great advice on booking your own tickets at a discount if early enough to get the limited-in-number discounted ones available - use either Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.italotreno.it/en - two competing rail companies using same tracks and stations. For general info trains like first v 2nd class, etc also check BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. You can always get on trains once there but buying well in advance can save lots of money but restricts you to a certain train on a certain date that cannot be changed so be sure of your times and dates.

Shuttle buses to Corniglia from train station below it were running one January when I was there - all other villages have stations right in them. Between the towns take shuttle trains - regional trains just buy tickets for few euros once there or take ferries if running when you are there.