My wife & I are trying to plan to go to Cinque Terra during a independently planned Venice, Florence, & Rome trip. Is it easier to plan to train over there from Venice, or Rome?? It looks closest to Florence, but I think we have to do the cities in succession...
Adam
The Cinque Terre would be closest to Florence. I would do it in this order -
Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome
Why do you feel you need to do the cities in any particular order? Where are you flying into and out of? Flying into Venice and out of Rome would make for a better trip.
Edit - We have monthly travel meetings in Sacramento. We meet the 3rd Saturday of each month. A reminder is always posted. Most, if not all of us have experience in Italy. We might be of assistance to you in your trip planning.
Andrea's advice is good, although I didn't realise any of those cities are seceding!!
It makes no difference what order as you travel via Florence to reach Cinque Terre.
Venice >> CT >> Florence >> Rome
or
Venice >> Florence >> CT >> Rome
Some people choose to travel via Milan to Cinque Terre (there are direct trains).
This eliminates backtracking to Florence, but could involve more time and greater expense.
Venice >> (Milan) >> CT >> Florence >> Rome
Actually djp, going north to south as suggested by Andrea may be better for the OP. If she is flying from the US directly to Italy then the airline schedules tend to be a bit more user friendly if doing this (flights from Venice to the US tend to go very early).
You mean south to north, starting in Rome ?
Just reverse my arrows. lol
Karen,
Actually, the order of travel does make a difference if you want to minimize travel times. The order that Andrea posted in the first reply is also the one I would suggest. Travelling direct from Venice to the Cinque Terre is a longer trip, as you'd be travelling from one side of the country to the other.
The order Venice > Florence > Cinque Terre > Rome is the most efficient as travel times are relatively short between each place. Getting to Rome is also easy at the end, as there are fast direct trains from La Spezia Centrale to Roma Termini with a travel time of about 3H:45M.
