Best route Volterra > Cinque Terre

A google maps search yielded advice to take the 500 bus to Pontedera. From Pontedera, the trenitalia site will get you to Vernazza (and therefore probably any other CT town) for as little as 6.80 euros in 2 to 2:45 hours. "Directions" function in google maps is pretty handy in this situation. When you click it, you have A to B (from to) in the upper left corner. Just above, there are four symbols. Car : Driving directions Train: Mass transit directions (Bus or train) Person: Walking directions Bicycle: Bicycle directions I put in Volterra to Vernazza, and clicked "Mass transit." Note the date and time. It looks at the schedule. Be aware that Trenitalia only publishes full schedules like 7 days in advance (for the computer) so pick the day of the week you're traveling that is within 7 days of today. This gives you a decent starting point, and helps figure out the bus service. It suggests taking the 500 bus to Pontedera C.T. While Google maps is a good starting point, and is the most helpful for figuring out busses, the train schedule is too complicated to use Google maps IMHO. So, I switch to Trenitalia.com and the english flag in the upper right corner. I plug in Pontedera C.T. and Vernazza. Ooops, it doesn't like "Pontedera C.T." So I drop the C.T and just use Pontedera. Voila!

Have you considered asking the hotel/lodging where you'll be staying? They often know the best way to get from Point A to Point B. Good luck.

The hotel only had the bus schedule to Pisa. Seemed odd to me, too. I use Google Earth all the time, but utilizing it this way is new to me. Thanks.

That is weird. Do you have the RS Italy book? He usually has a section called "Connections" I believe where he talks about the different ways to get to/from one of his locations. It's not always easy to get from one small town to another in Italy, as you've discovered. Good luck.

probably about the same time wise.... But you could also take the 780 bus to the train station in Saline, about 20 minutes. then train from there. You can actually put in Volterra in trenitalia and that is the station you'll get. Here is a link to the bus schedule. http://www.cpt.pisa.it/orari/extra.htm

I do have the R.S. book. For Volterra, it mentions that the nearest train station is in Saline di Volterra (15 minutes away by bus). It only goes on to say Pisa can be reached by bus with a 'change of coaches in Pontedera.' I would have to have dug deeper to realize I could catch to C.T. the train in Pontedera.

de nada.

I've taken the bus between Volterra and Pontedera. It's much better to switch to the train in Pontedera rather than continuing by bus to Pisa and catching the train there. The bus and train combo via Pontedera worked well for me. Not sure how it compares time-wise to the bus and train combo via Saline as I've not taken that route.

The train from Saline di Volterra goes directly west to Cecina where you transfer to the trains going north to the CT. Looking at the Trenitalia train schedule, the Saline train is not all that frequent. It looks like a 3hr. train journey not counting the bus trip to Saline di Volterra. The train runs from Pontedera are more frequent and the journey from Pontedera is about 1.5hrs not counting the bus ride from Volterra.