my husband and myself are looking to travel by train from venice to cinque terre by train but dont know the best route to travel ...or should we hire a car and drive there
Tracey,
The trip from Venice to the Cinque Terre is much better (and faster) by train. Have a look at the Trenitallia or bahn.de websites for specifics.
I'd probably try to access the C.T. via La Spezia rather than Genova, as it's a smaller station. You'll probably have to change trains in Milan, however I haven't checked on the routing possibilities.
Happy travels!
The last thing you want in Cinque Terre is a car. Go to the train station in Venice and tell them you want a ticket to Cinque Terre (choose a village).
Driving to the CT is no big deal. In Vernazza you can park for a reasonable fee at the top of the hill. They let you drop off your family and luggage at edge of town and then drive back up to park. By the time I walked back to town (10 minutes), my son had already found us a great place to stay (and this was early July).
Italy was MUCH easier to drive in than, say St. Ives or Mousehole in Cornwall or north Devon...talk about a graduate school in driving!
Thankyou to everyone for your advice....Train sounds great but we are staying in a town called portogruaro 1hr from venice and are leaving on a sunday (dont know what trains are like on a sunday in Italy but here it slows down )So i think best bet is to train it to milan then la spezia, then onto vernazza.
Ciao