I'm going to travel to the French Riviera in mid-July. The plan is to stay in Villefranche-sur-Mer although I may just choose Nice. I'm going to do little trips to other sites either by bus or small tours. So I was wondering if I could do a little venture into Italy. I'd like to see Portofino or Cinque Terre. Is that doable? Would I stay there for 2 nights for example? Would I leave for home from Nice or Italy? Thank you for suggestions.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33848 posts
Does Nice or Milan Malpensa have better fares? Better connections to your home, wherever that is?
Where did you fly home from in April?
Posted by
Reno, Nevada
1025 posts
It's doable, but the travel time by train is almost 5 hours each way. Nice is the larger airline hub, but if you wanted to leave from Milan, it's only a 3 hour train trip. Doing a rental car and dropping off in Italy will incur huge extra charges.
Posted by
Nice, France & San Francisco
713 posts
You can take the train Note when researching options there are multiple operators, both french and italian, that can help minimize the connections (options get more limited when catching from VSM).
If you need to fly out of portal city to return home, you can also take a flight from Genoa or connect directly from the Cinque Terre on to Malpensa via Milano Centrale station.
Note in VSM, in July it is peak season. Plan your access to the train station carefully, as the buses can sometimes get quite crowded during peak season, notably the 100 line.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32353 posts
cm,
Although that trip is certainly feasible, it's a bit of a long trip for just two nights especially as travel is going to take about five hours each way.
Staying in Nice might provide slightly easier transportation. I wasn't able to check schedules for July, but using an arbitrary date in mid-May, there's a departure from Nice Ville at 08:51, arriving Monterosso at 13:54 (time 5H:03M, two changes). That's probably the train I'd use. With that arrangement, you'd only have the late afternoon and evening of your arrival day and the following day to explore the five towns. You'd have to check out of your hotel on the morning of the third day for your return to France (if that was the plan???). If you want to return home from Italy, Milan Malpensa is probably the easiest solution. You'd have to take the train to Milan (about four hours from Monterosso), spend one night there and then board your flight the following day.
IMO, Portofino wouldn't be worth the travel time. It can be seen in a few hours and I'd probably be bored silly spending two nights there.